l^iIEsentefl 



TO 



BY 






(niyv S)yu^,^ oyH^ o/a^cAmy. 



OUR BIBLE, OUR CHURCH 



AND 



Our Country. 



A OB AND TRINITY. 



fizli and patriJoM^m from poeMc and priQ^e ^ElBciion^ 



BY 



Rev. JOHN DUKE McFADEN, 

AUTHOE OF "the STOEY OF JESUS." 



STSEXi ipiij^TiE lEn^G-ie^'v-iisra-s. 



philadelphia : 
The Brethren Tract Society 

18S9. 




t)^ 






Copyright, 1884, by 
JOHN DUKE McFADEN. 



FERGUSON BROS. &. CO. 

PRINTERS AND ELECTROTYPERS, 

PHILADELPHIA. 



/ 



//c?7 



/xs- 



TO MV FATHER, WHO TAUGHT ME FROM 

''OUR BIBLE;'' 

TO MY MOTHER, WHO LED ME TO 

''OUR CHURCH r' 

TO MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS, WHO MADE ME THINK 

"OUR COUNTRY'' 

A GOODLY HERITAGE, 
THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICAT-ED. 



THE AUTHOR'S PRELUDE, 




It is customary, in all well-regulated familie>s, 
to say grace before meals, and, having pro- 
vided so many good things for your enjoy- 
ment, it is right that I should offer a prelude 
before you partake of them. 

OUR BIBLE. 

There is no book like the Bible. It has God for its 
author and a world's salvation for its object; hence it was 
absolutely essential for the safety and happiness of the 
human race. Nature was not sufficient as a guide: it needed 
a supplement; God gave us a revelation. 

You have probably visited the gallery of art in Wash- 
ington City. If so, you have looked upon that noble piece 
of marble, "The Greek Slave," standing before it. You ask 
from whence it came, and why it is there, but you cannot 
get one idea by asking it questions. Its ears are deaf and 
its lips are dumb. It is beautiful, but cold and silent. 

You purchase a catalogue, and in it you read that the 
piece of marble called "The Greek Slave" was made by an 

(7)*' 



8 AUTHOR'S PRELUDE. 

artist named Powers, and was purchased for the gallery 
of art, where it has been admired by thousands, and so you 
learn from the catalogue all the facts about the piece of 
marble. 

"The Greek Slave" represents Nature, the catalogue 
represents Eevelation. One is essential to the correct un- 
derstanding of the other. 

Nature is filled with beautiful paintings and wonderful 
formations, but all the beauties and wonders of nature are 
silent as to their author and object until supplemented by 
revelation. 

Look at the rainbow as it spans the art gallery of the 
sky — what a beautiful piece of work! You want to learn 
something about its object, but you might stand and ask 
it questions until doomsday and get no information. It is 
only when you pick up the divine catalogue that you have 
revealed the object of the rainbow : " I do set my bow in 
the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between 
me and the earth." 

Stand by the coffin of your loved one; the deep under- 
current of the heart seeks for a solution of the mystery 
men call death. The sun may be shining, the birds may 
be singing, the flowers may be blooming, the fountain 
may be sparkling, and all nature may be aglow; but nature 
through all her various manifestations cannot satisfy your 
mind nor comfort your heart. 

Go to revelation ; read such words as those of John : "And 
I heard a voice from heaven, saying unto me, write; Blessed 



AUTHOR'S PRELUDE. 9 

are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth : yea, 
saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors: and 
their works do follow them." Then you have: "Beauty 
for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise 
for the spirit of heaviness." Revelation only enables you 
to appreciate the words of the Master: "Let not your heart 
be troubled, neither let it be afraid." 

The Bible, being a supplement to Nature and essential to 
our nature, should be honestly used and practically followed. 
Many people have very fine Bibles, but they are not used ; 
they are for visitors to look at, not for home-folks to handle. 
Such a state of affairs should not exist. 

The captain studies his chart and examines his compass, 
and is able to direct his vessel in the right direction. The 
Bible is our chart and compass — its needle points toward 
Christ, the pole-star of the soul's universe ; hence it should 
be studied, so that the bark of life can be kept from the 
breakers and guided into the gulf-stream of eternity. 

The Bible should be used honestly. Over a door in London 
are the words: "All kinds of twisting and turning done 
here." Over the doors of many Bible-readers might be written 
the words: "All kinds of intellectual twisting and turning 
done here." Martin Luther said : " We should not bend the 
Bible to suit us, but let the Bible bend us, and so give it 
credit for knowing more than we do." 

Use the Bible, use it right, and hold to it through life. 

A preacher and his wife had occasion to leave their two 
little children with the nurse during the afternoon; the 



10 AUTHOR'S PRELUDE. 

nurse also left and the two little ones were left alone. When 
evening came they were fearful. It was dark when the 
parents returned; they found the boy and girl on the steps 
with their hands on the Bible, which was between them. 
When fear seized them, they went into the parlor, got down 
the large family Bible, dragged it out on the steps, and put 
their little hands upon it. They said they were not afraid 
as long as they kept their hands upon the Bible. 

The object of this book is to get your hands on the Bible; 
there you are safe. Depart from its teachings and you are 
in danger. Let us also hide it in our hearts, and practise 
its precepts in our lives. 

OUR CHURCH. 

If there is no book like the Bible, neither is there any 
organization like the. Church. No doubt there were other 
boats in Noah's day, but there was no boat like the Ark. 
It successfully carried its passengers to the salvation moun- 
tain, where they met God and were circled by a rainbow. 

By the term "Our Church," I have reference to all whose 
wills are in subjection to the will of God. All such are 
members of the church militant. The Master said : " Whoso- 
ever doeth the w^ill of my Father, the same is my brother, 
my sister, my mother." This passage makes every doer 
of God's will a member of God's family, and places every 
woman on equality with the Virgin Mary, whom some place 
above every other woman. 

There is but one church; Christ is its head. A perfect 



AUTHOR'S PRELUDE. H 

bead must not have two bodies; sucb a formation would be 
a monstrosity; hence there is but one body for the one 
head, and this body forms the family of God. Paul refers 
to the oneness of the church in Christ when he says : " Of 
whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named." 
The Head himself, said : " One is your Master, even Christ, 
and all ye are brethren." 

The object of the church is the world's salvation, phys- 
ical, intellectual arid spiritual. For this object Christ came 
into the world and worked the plan of salvation, and his 
body should continue the work and seek and save the lost. 
Any organization failing to have for its object the world's 
salvation cannot accomplish the object for which Christ 
died. 

Some people seem to act as though they thought the 
church a mutual admiration society, organized especially for 
their benefit, and run on the ^'you tickle me and I will tickle 
you" principle; such individuals are an obstacle to success. 
They must be converted before they can help strengthen 
the brethren. 

The church should be freed from all dead growth. Nature 
is more prolific if assisted by pruning. The dead growth 
must be removed, if the vital force would accomplish its 
object. The church often has an 'accumulation of dead 
growth, and if success would be sure, there must be more 
or less pruning. The sap power of Christianity must flow 
through clear channels if it would be successful in its oper- 



12 . AUTHOR'S PRELUDE, 

ations. Dead ideas and worn-out theories have no right to 
impede the progress of Christ. 

On one occasion a man detected an unpleasant odor, and 
it became worse; he consulted his physician, took medicine^ 
but the trouble grew worse. It was supposed the offensive 
odor was the result of some disease. Matters went so far 
that preparations were made for death, when a dead mouse 
was found in the lining of the man's coat. The mystery 
being explained, the man's appetite returned and his health 
was restored, as was also his happiness. 

There are many organizations having about them that 
which is offensive ; consequently people condemn the society 
and talk against Christianity. But the trouble is not with 
Christ, nor the principle of Christianity, nor the Bible, nor 
the church as an organization, but some humanism, worldly- 
ism, sinism has crawled in, and that "ism" is the trouble. 
Shake the coat, and throw the mouse away, and you will 
be healthy and happy. 

The church should seek to be attractive. Nature is at- 
tractive, Grace is attractive, and the organization that at- 
tempts to develo|) Nature by Grace should do the work in 
an attractive manner. There was a time when two sticks ^ 
at each end of a slab would do for a pew, and two laths 
tacked together with candles fastened at each end with hot 
tallow would do for a chandelier, but that time has gone 
by. People in the present day have more attractive homes 
than those in other days had, and they should seek attrac- 



AUTHOR'S PRELUDE. 13 

tion in the church, and thus have harmony between the 
home and church. 

One element of Christian attractiveness — aside from the 
neatly-built and well-arranged house — is spiritual sociability. 
The church that is not social is on the dead line. A lady 
told me she had visited a church for two years, and in all 
that time no one had taken her by the hand. This may 
have been an extreme case, but there is too much of this 
lack of the social principle. There is a great deal of relig- 
ion in a good honest shake of the hand. The gospel of the 
elbow is a good gospel; not only to preach, but to practise. 

The preacher is often expected to do all this work. While 
the pews are frozen solid, the pulpit is expected to be on 
fire. It is true the preacher should manifest the social prin- 
ciple, but the pew should not be behind him in such mani- 
festation. The members of a church can make the visitor 
have a home-like feeling that the preacher, no matter how 
friendly he may be, cannot make them have. The pulpit 
has a work; the pew also has a work; and the work of 
pulpit and pew tend in the same direction, viz., to seek and 
save the lost, and then develop the saved for work in time 
and happiness in heaven. 

There is one element of a successful church not to be 
overlooked — care for the young. If a church would grow 
and become strong and exert an influence for good, the 
young must be cared for; they are not only the hope but 
the strength of the church. Our nation recognizes the 
principle, and has her West Point. Every church should 



14 AUTHOR'S PRELUDE. 

have a training-school for the young. Literary men recognize 
the principle and spend millions of dollars yearly in litera- 
ture for the young; the church should never be behind 
the world in feeding the miinds of the young. As the wise 
men took their best gifts to Christ, let us take our best 
offerings — the young — to Him who said: "Suffer little chil- 
dren to come unto me and forbid them not, for of such is 
the kingdom of heaven." 

OUR COUNTRY. 

How true are the words of David, and how applicable to 
our own land! "The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant 
places; yea, I have a goodly heritage." There is no land 
like the land we' live in. It is great in many respects. 

Our country is great in the extent of her territory. From 
the Pacific on the west to the Atlantic on the east, and 
from the Lakes on the north to the Gulf on the south is a 
vast extent of territory, inhabited by teeming millions who 
are working out the object of their creation. 

Our country is great in her natural resources. There are 
veins of coal, wells of oil, fountains of gas, mines of gold, 
and silver, and copper — lodes of lead. God has not only 
led us into a great land, but he has put in it the material 
by which it can be used and made goodly. In a few years 
one hundred millions will be the number of inhabitants, 
and they will be just as well cared for then as the sixty 
millions are now. 

Our country is great in her beautiful scenery. No Amer- 



AUTHOR'S PRELUDE, 15 

' iccan need visit Europe to look on beautiful scenery; we have 
it here, in beauty unsurpassed. This land has within its 
borders the skies of Italy, the glow of Spain, the rugged- 
ness of Switzerland, and the pictured beauty of England, 
stamped with its own originality. Visit romantic Harper's 
Ferry, subUme Niagara, the wonderful Yosemite, and a 
thousand places where you can see the foot-prints and finger- 
marks of the great Jehovah; and seeing them you say: 
" This is none other but the house of God, and this is the 
gate of heaven." 

Our country is great in the fundamental principles of her 
government. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness 
form a triangle which, struck by honest hearts, makes music 
rich enousrh for ano-elic ears. This triune bond of union 

o o 

touches mankind at the physical, intellectual and spiritual 
corners of life, and enables him to a^ppreciate his Maker who 
said: "Let us make man in our own image." Where can 
man so enjoy life, breathe the air of liberty and unre- 
strained pursue his happiness, as in this country, the land 
of the free and the home of the brave ? 

Our country offsets the tower of Babel ; there the people 
were of one speech and language, but God visited and con- 
fused them, and they were divided and scattered. From that 
tower young nations went forth in every direction; but into, 
our country all nations are pouring their strong bodies, 
bright minds and brave hearts; and here, these men from 
all climes are being welded into one great, mighty, omnipo- 
tent nation — the light-house of the world, the guide of 



16 AUTHOR'S PRELUDE. 

humanity, the index-finger pointing to the triumph of prin- 
ciple over policy. Babel meant scatteration, America means 
concentration for God and humanity. 

These assertions are facts, recognized by the brightest 
minds of earth. Stoughton said : " God sifted a whole na- 
tion that he might send choice grain over into this wilder- 
ness." Klopstock said: ^^By the rivers of America light 
beams forth to the nations." Judge Gied said : " Who would 
not be an American citizen and claim a home in these 
United States ! " Good old Father Taylor said : " I have 
travelled far, and have seen the best of all the countries of 
this world, and there is but one United States of America 
in the world." 

If our country is God*s creation, it should be so developed 
as to promote God's glory. This can be accomplished by 
repudiating sin and exalting righteousness, for ^"'righteous- 
ness exalteth a nation ; but ^in is a reproach to any people." 
To this end let all religious societies and all political asso- 
ciations " make a chain : for the land is full of bloody 
crimes, and the city full of violence." Our nation started 
with an open Bible and a free church ; let her so continue. 
As Bancroft says: '^^ The maturity of the nation is but a 
continuation of its youth," and we all know that in a union 
of hands and hearts for a pure object there is strength. 

Our country, to develop purity, must take the youth as 
she finds them, and make them what they ought to be. 
Let them be taught to obey the Bible, reverence the church, 
defend the Sabbath and love their country. Blend their 



^AUTHOR'S PRELUDE, 17 

bodies, minds and spirits, and teach them patriotism. Over 
every school-house let the stars and stripes float, and days 
be set apart especially for the purpose of impressing them 
with the greatness of our land, the glory of truth, the 
triumphs of righteousness and the goodness of God, keeping 
before them, first, last and all the time, the great fact taught 
by Washington: "While just government protects all in 
their religious rights, true religion affords to government its 
surest support." 

Our country, great and glorious, should not be regarded 
with indifference. Well says James A. Garfield : " Shall we 
regard with indifference the great inheritance which cost 
our sires their blood, because we find in their gift an admix- 
ture of imperfection and evil ? Surely there is good enough 
in the contemplation of which every patriotic heart may 
say : ^ God bless my own, my native land !'" 

Let every citizen do the duty lying nearest him or her, 
and it can ever be said: "God reigns, and the government 
at Washington still lives." 

Let the noble motto be, 
^'God, the country, liberty!" 
Planted on religion's rock, 
Thou shalt stand in every shock. 

Laugh at danger far or near; 
Spurn at baseness, spurn at fear ; 
Still with persevering might 
Speak the truth and do the right. 



18 AUTHOR'S PRELUDE. 

So shall Peace — a charming guest — 
Dove-like in thy bosom rest, 
So shall Honor's steady blaze 
Beam upon thy closing days, 

Happy if celestial favor 
Smile upon the high endeavor; 
Happy if it be thy call 
In the holy cause to fall. 

Trusting that " Our Bible, Our Church and Our Country" 
may lead the mind of the reader into green pastures and 
beside still waters, and enable you to say, "I will dwell in 
the house of the Lord forever," I am 






LIST OF CONTENTS, 



Our Biblk. 



Our Bible Dennis . 

The Bible Schaff . 

Argument for its Purity Protestant 

Independent of other Books Gilfillan . 

Superiority of the Bible De Vere , 

Source of all Good . Webster . 

Abroad in the World Stockton . 

Moral Power of the Bible Chamberlain 

Inspiration of the Bible Dryden . 

Proof of Inspiration Stockton . 

Indispensable to Christians Rousseau 

The Bible Proves Itself Savage , 

Preservation of Scripture Home 

Its Preservation a Standing Miracle . . . Gumley , 

The Survival of the Fittest Talmage 

Survives Friends and Foes Rogers 

The Pyramid among Books Gibbons 

The Marvel of the Ages . i Storrs 

Chief Reason for Being Whitman 

Citadel of Christian Faith Leech . 

The Hope of Human Progress Seward 

Teachings of the Bible Pollok 

Wisdom of Believing the Bible ..... Coles . 

Op Interest to All Stockton 

A Many-sided Book Storrs 

Adapted to all Classes ........ Guthrie 



PAGE 

33 

34 

36 

37 

41 

41 

42 

51 

55 

56 

59 

60 

62 

64 

, 67 

69 

70 

, 70 

. 73 

. 74 

. 76 

. 77 

. 80 

. 86 

. 89 

. 92 



(19) 



20 



CONTENTS, 



PAGE 

A Mother's Gift — The Bible Anonymous : . . 93 

A Book for Children Parker .... 94 

Three Bibles Uvans .... 95 

The Old Faiviily Bible Anonymous . . . . 98 

Study the Scriptures Locke . . . . . 101 

The Picture Bible Freiligraih . . . 102 

The Leadership of the Bible Spring .... 104 

Influence on Modern Authors GilfiUan . . . .108 

Test the Influence of Scripture . . . . . GilfMan . . . .119 

Reaches the Gtreatest Depth Coleridge . . .120 

The Bible in the School Halsey . . . .121 

The Bible the Best Classic Grimke . . . .124 

Understanding the Bible Moody . . . ,126 

A Remedy for Doubts Stanley .... 128 

Value op the Bible Whittier . . . .130 

The Bible and Civilization Leech 130 

Women and the Bible Edwards . . . .132 

One of the Sweet Old Chapters Advocate . . . .134 

The Blessings of the Bible Lvans 135 

But One Book McArthur . . .138 

One Bible Enough Stockton . . . . ]40 

The Book AVorth All .^ . . . Newton .... 141 

The Glory of the Bible World .... 141 

Christ in the Bible Graham .... 142 

The Bible God's Light Wadsivorth . . .143 

The Fountain of Eloquence Ames 144 

Blessed Bible Palmer .... 145 

The Foundation of Nations Emperor William . 145 

The Bible and Science . Pentecost . . . .146 

Science and the Bible Shaftesbury . . .147 

Striking the Bible Talmage . . . • . 148 

The Rock of our Republic ....... Jackson .... 149 

Resistance tq the Bible Evans 150 

From the Author of Nature Origen . . . .151 

Why Men Hate the Bible Hastinas . . . .152 



CONTENTS. 



21 



PAGE 

Who Keject the Bible Davies . . . .154 

Effects of Destroying the Bible Guard . . . .155 

Our Answer to the Skeptic MansMp . . . .157 

Our Only Solace in Death Rohinson . . . 157 

A Book for a Dying Pillow Cook . . . . .158 

The Bible Precious ' . Fawcett . . . .159 

A Paradise of Delights Chrysostom . . .159 

The Sheet Anchor of Liberty Grant . . . .160 

The Mystery of Mysteries Scott 160 



Our Church 



Our Church Dennis .... 163 

Character of the Church ....... Stockton . . . .164 

Spirituality of the Church Ames 165 

The Revival Needed Advocate . . . .169 

A Foe to the Church Advocate .... 172 

The Church in thiI World Anonymous . . .174 

The World Fears the Church John Milton . .174 

The Church a Bride Neal 175 

The Church Christ's Bride Spurgeon . . .175 

Purity op the Church Baxandale . , .176 

The Shining Church Olin 177 

A Place for Aching Hearts Cuyler . . . .178 

A G-lorious Church Christian . . .179 

History of the Primitive Church Gibbon . . . .181 

The Church still Unflinching Hurst . . . .194 

Strengthened by Persecution Gnthrie . . . .195 

Love for the Church Dwight ... .195 

The Church Indispensable Washington . . .196 

The Cross and Crown Richards . . .196 

The Mother of all Good Marvin . . . .197 

The World without the Church Black 197 

Object of the Church , B'eecher . . . .199 



22 



CONTENTS. 



Business of the Church Cooh . . 

What the Church Must Do Simpson . 

Specific Work of the Church Christian 

The Church Seeks the Lost Bidwell . 

The Church Aggressive Guard 

What the Church has Accomplished . . . Faftrar . 

The Church a Leader Abbott 

The Church to be Universal GtlJlUan . 

Oneness of Christianity Stockton . 

Spread of the Church Anonymous 

Numerical Progress of the Church .... EUicott . 

A New Literature Barnes . 

The Fountain of Song Hastings . 

The One Church Gould 

The Church Will Live Perry . . 

True Centre of the Church ....... Christian 

Perpetuity of the Church 3Iason 

The Church Immovable Coxe . . 

Christianity a Finality Williard . 

The Church Burr . . 

The Church GtOd's House . McFaden 

The House of God a Refuge Edmeston 

The Church in the House Anonymous 

The Verdict for Christianity Gibson . 

Picture of Family Worship Bums . . 

The Mission of the Church Hall . . 

The Church and the Children Stoddard 

Every Family a Church Amot . . 

The Family a Nursery Mason 

The Young for Christ Simpson . 

Coming into the Church ........ Anonymous 

The Church and Temperance Newman . 

The Mark on the Sheep Thompson 

The Church to Save America ...... Cook . . 

Our Country's Safeguard . Webster . 



PAGE 

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CONTENTS. 



23 



PAQE 

Keep Church and State Separate .... Grant .... 249 

True Test or a Church Advocate .... 249 

A Christian . Union .... 253 

What Constitutes a Christian ...... Eopfner .... 254 

The Christian the World's Bible .... Chnstleih . . .254 

Christian System of Chronology Bidwell .... 256 

Hand of G-od in Modern Missions .... Pierson .... 264 

Headquarters of the Church Christian . . . 265 

A Call for Workers Anderson . . .266 

Christ's Church Should Look Up .... Taylor .... 267 

Soul-Hunger of the Church Bakei^ .... 269 

The Church Watching JDowntan . . . .271 

The Church Waiting Bonar . . . .272 

The Last Testimony Mehill . . . .273 

Not a Wife of Pleasure ........ Arrowsmith . . . 274 

Watchword of the Church Irving .... 275 

The Church Triumphant Toplady .... 277 

Where the Church Is Fressense .... 279 

God in the Church Union . . . .280 

Joys of the Church Triumphant Baxter . . . .283 

The Spiritual Temple Anonymous , . .285 

The Unreyealed Church Chaplin .... 287 

The Blessings of Zion Isaiah . . . .289 



Our Country. 

Our Country Dennis 

America Phillips 

America the Old World Agas^ 

Where to Anchor Politics Farrar 

The Discovery of America Irving 

God's Hand in the Discovery Simpson 

The Colonization of America Prescott 

Our Native Land Dwight 



293 
294 
296 
302 
303 
309 
311 
315 



24 



CONTENTS, 



Much Good in the Land Garfield 

First in War, etc Lee 

Love of Country Holt . 

A Product op Christianity Refpublican 

Our Country a Household Whipple 

What is our Country Baker 

The Old Thirteen Brooks 

Hymn to Washington Pierpont 

Not a Cent for Tribute Pinckney 

The Birthday of Washington Choate 

A Good Place to Live In Scott . 

The Character of Washington Anonymous 

An Epitaph on Washington Washington 

The Land of our Birth . . Anonymous 

History of the Declaration Parton 

Independence Bell, July 4, '76 Garland 

Liberty Addison 

The Fourth of July Pierpont 

Our Natal Day Choate 

Liberty in America Moore 

Spirit of Liberty Webster 

America vs. Europe Gibbon 

The Flower of Liberty Holmes 

Liberty Still Lives Lear . 

Liberty and Greatness Legare 

Independence . ; Thomson 

Three Bulwarks of Liberty Century 

Union Linked with Liberty Jackson 

Importance of the Union Webster 

We are One People Whittier 

The Union and its Results Everett 

What we Owe to the Union Stephens 

But One United States Taylor 

The Whole Union Prentiss 

The True Glory of America MeUen 



PAGE 

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CONTENTS, 25 



PAGE 



Patriotism Scott . . ; . . 357 

Freedom and Patriotism Dewey .... 358 

The IsmoRTALiTY or Patriots ...... Everett . . . .361 

Shrines of Patriotism Collins .... 363 

Responsibility of our Country Madison . . . .363 

The Groavth of Freedom Worst 364 

Situation of America' Webster .... 365 

Our Country's Defence Webster .... 366 

Our Republic Triumphant Sumner . . . .367 

True Religion Supports G-overnment . . . Washington . . . 367 

Blessings of a Free Government Ward 368 

Take Care of our Government Collyer .... 369 

Public Virtue Clay 371 

First, Last, and Always Whipple . . . .373 

The. Republic God's Creation Fulton .... 374 

National Guards Ingersoll .... 375 

Our Country Smith ..... 380 

Our National Banner . . Everett . . . .381 

History of our Flag Putnam .... 382 

The American Flag Drake ; .... 384 

God Bless the Flag .... ;....'. Simpson .... 386 

Our Flag a Power BirMns .... 386 

Guardian of Humanity Kossuth , . . .387 

The Star-Spangled Banner Key 388 

The Utopia of Christianity GuUiver .... 389 

Christ Watches the Ballot-Box ; . . . . West 389 

Our Constitution Without Parallel .... Langston . . .390 

Origin of our Constitution Webster .... 390 

The Constitution Bryant .... 398 

The Position of our Flag . . i . . . . Simpson .... 399 

American Citizenship Lossing . . . . 399 

The Duty of Ajierican Citizenship .... Webster .... 402 

The Ark of America Holland . . . .403 

Duty to the State 3Iore 404 

The Ballot-Box Chapin .... 405 



26 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Choice G-rain for Asierica JStoughton . . .406 

The Safeguard or the Republic Blaine .... 406 

Poor Voters on Election Day Whittier .... 407 

Changes or a Century Smith . . ; . 408 

A Century's Progress Ahhott . . . .410 

Intellectual Progress op a Century ... Ward 414 

The Emblem or our Country Wilson . . . .416 

The American Eagle Telegraph . . .419 

American History Verplanch . . .420 

The Country of Homes Cuyler . . * . 422 

America the Land Byron .... 423 

American Scenery Willis .... 424 

The Prairies Bryant .... 428 

A Visit to the Yosemite . Guard .... 432 

Description of Niagara Falls Anonymous . . . 439 

Paul Jones and the Navy Murdoch . . . .441 

Hail, Columbia Hopkinson . . .447 

Our Country's Greatest G^lory Whipple .... 449 

Ideas the Life of a People Curtis . . . .451 

The True Basis of Liberty Choate . , . .453 

Our Nation Started Right Gruard .... 454 

The Seed Corn of the Republic Cuyler i . . . 455 

Mission of America Dwight .... 456 

Opening of the Centennial Ridpath .... 457 

Centennial Hy^in Whittier . . . .461 

G-REETING TO AMERICA Brehmer .... 462 

Our Future Greatness Guard .... 463 

America has a Future Cantwell .... 465 

Destiny of America Berkeley .... 466 

Freedom's Grand Review Belong .... 467 

The Light-House of Nations Klopstock . . . 470 

Declaration of Independence Jefferson . . . .471 

Our Government— Its Administration 476 

A Parting Word Bartlett .... .480 



AUTHORS QUOTED 



PAGE 

A 

Arnot, Dr 239 

Ames, G-. W 165 

Ames, Fisher r 144 

Abbott, Lyman 204 

Abbott, John S. C 410 

Anderson, Mrs 266 

Addison, Joseph 335 

Arrowsmith, Dr 224 

Advocate, Christian . . . 134, 249 
Advocate, Central Christian . .169 
Advocate, Western Christian . .172 

B 

Burr, Dr 226 

Black, Judge 197 

Byron, Lord 423 

Bryant, W. C 389, 428 

Burns, Robert 232 

Blaine, James G 406 

Birkins, Eev. H. H 386 

Brehmer, Frederica 462 

Beecher, H. W 199 

Bidwell, Rev. I. G. . . . 202, 256 

Barnes, Albert 214 

Baxter, Richard 283 

Bonar, Horatinus 272 

Baker, Senator 320 

Baker, Sheridan 269 



Brooks, Charles Timothy . . .320 

Berkeley, George 466 

Bartlett, Wm. A., D. D. . . . 480 
Baxandale, Rev. J. . . . . .176 

C 

Coleridge . ; 120 

Coles, George 80 

Choate, Rufus . . 453, 323, 336 
Cook, Joseph . . . 158, 199, 248 

Cantwell, Edward 465 

Christian, The . . 200, 222, 265 
Cuyler, T. L., D. D. . 178, 422, 455 

Chaphn, S. A 287 

Chapin, E. H 405 

Clay, Hon. Henry 371 

Collins, William 363 

Coxe, A. Cleveland 225 

Chrysostom, Father 159 

Chamberlain, Dr. Jacob ... 51 

Curtis, George W 451 

Collyer, Rev. Robert . . . .369 
Christlieb, Prof. Theo 254 

D 

Dryden, John 55 

Dwight, John S 315 

Dwight, Timothy . 161, 195, 456 
David, The King .... 31, 291 
(27) 



28 



AUTHORS QUOTED, 



Dewey, Orville 358 

Belong, Hon. C. E 470 

Dounton, Henry 271 

De Yere, Sir Aubrey .... 41 
Davies, James Hamilton . . .154 
Dennis, Amanda Elizabeth 33, 

163, 293 



E 



Evans, Herbert . 
Edwards, Tryon . 
Edmeston, James 
Ellicott, C. J. . . 
Everett, Edward . 
Everett, Alex. H. 



95, 135, 150 
. . 132 
. . 229 
. . 213 
349, 361 
. . 381 



F 



Fawcett, John 159 

Farrar, Canon 203, 302 

Freiligrath, Ferdinand . . . .102 
Fulton, Justin D., D. D. . . . 374 



a 



Grinke 124 

Grant, U. S 160, 249 

Graham, H. ....... 142 

Guard, Kev. Thomas 155, 203, 

432, 454, 463 
Guthrie, Thomas ... 92, 195 

Gibbon, Edward 181 

Gibbons, Archbishop . . 70, 339 
Gibson, Chief- Justice . . .' . 231 

Gumley, J. Stewart 64 

Gilfillan, George . 37, 108, 119, 208 

Garfield, James A 315 

Gulliver, Rev. John P 389 

Garland, Speaker 335 

Gould, Sabine Baring . . . .220 



H 

Hopftier 254 

Home, Thomas 62 

Hurst, Bishop 194 

Hall, John, D. D 233 

Holt, Hon. Joseph 216 

Hastings, H. L, . . . . 152, 215 

Henry, Patrick 362 

Holland, Rev. R. A 403 

Hopkinson, Joseph 447 

Holmes, Oliver Wendell . . .340 
Hasey, Le Roy J., D. D. . . . 121 



I 



Irving, Edward .... 
Irving, Washington . . . 
Ingersoll, Edward P., D. D. 
Isaiah, The Prophet . . 



. 275 
. 303 
. 375 
. 289 



Jefferson, Thomas 
Jackson, Andrew 



. . 471 

149, 345 



K 



Klopstock 470 

Kossuth, Louis 387 

Key, Francis Scott 388 



Locke, John . . 
Leech, S. Y.,D.D. 
Lincoln, Abraham 
Lee, Gen. Henry 
Lear, Hon. George 
Legare, Hugh Swinton 
Lossing, Benson J. , LL, 



D. 



Langston, Prof. John Mercer 
M 



. 101 

74, 132 

. 455 

. 315 

. 343 

. 344 

. 399 

. 390 



Mason, Dr 223 

Mason, J. M 239 



AUTHORS QUOTED, 



29 



Moody, D. L .126 

Melvill, Henry .273 

Manship, Andrew 157 

Milton, John 174 

Marvin, Bishop 197 

Moore, Thomas 337 

More, Hannah 404 

Magazine, Century 345 

Mellen, Greenville 355 

Madison, James . . . . . . 363 

Murdock, James E 441 

McFaden, Rev. J. A 227 

MacArthur, K S., D. D. . . .138 



N 



Newton, John . 
Neal, Alice B. 
Newman, Bishop 







Olin, Stephen . 
Origen, Father 



141 
175 

247 

177 
151 

279 
161 

328 
335 



Pressence ........ 

Paul, The Apostle 

Parton, James 

Pierpont, John .... 321, 
Pollok, Robert .... 77, 162 

Phillips, Charles 294 

Parker, Theodore 94 

Pinckney, Cotesworth .... 322 

Palmer, Phoebe 145 

Perry, John T 221 

Pentecost, George F 146 

Prentiss, S. S 355 

•Pierson, Rev. Arthur T. . . . 265 
Protestant Methodist .... 36 
Prescott, William Hickling . .311 
Putnam, Rev. Alfred P. . . . 382 

R 
Rousseau 59 



Rogers, Henry 69 

Robinson, Charles S 157 

Richards, W. C 196 

Ridpath, John Clark . . . .457 
Republican, Springfield . . .317 

S 

Stoughton 406 

Simpson, Bishop . 200, 239, 309, 399 
Sumner, Charles .... 367, 464 

Schaif, Phillip 34 

Storrs, R. S 70, 89 

Seward, W. H 76 

Spring, L. W 104 

Stoddard, W. P 234 

Spurgeon, Charles 175 

Scott, George R 324 

Scott, Sir Walter .... 160, 358 

Savage, Minot F 60 

Stockton, Thomas H. 42, 56, 86, 

140, 164, 210 

Stanley, Arthur P 128 

Stephens, Hon. A. H 352 

Smith, Samuel F. ..... 380 

Smith, Judge I. W 408 

Simpson, Samual L 386 

Shaftesbury, Earl of .... 147 



Thompson. Dr. 

Taylor, D. T. . 

Taylor, Father 

Tocqueville, De 

Thomson, James 

Talmage, DeWitt 

Toplady, Augustus Montague 

Telegraph, Southern Religious 

U 



247 
267 
354 
418 
344 
148 
277 
419 



Union, Baptist 253 

Union, Christian 280 



30 



AUTHORS QUOTED, 



Verplanck, Grulian C 420 

W 

Wilson 416 

Willis, N. P 424 

Watts, Isaac 161 

Whipple, Bishop . 318, 373, 449 
Webster, Daniel . 41, 248, 338, 

347, 365, 366, 390, 402 
Whitman, Walt 73 



World, Christian 141 

Wadsworth, Charles . . . .143 
Washington, George . . 196, 367 

Washington, Judge 326 

Williard, G. W 225 

Whittier, John G-. . 130, 348, 

408, 461 

Worst, John H 364 

West, Mary Allen 389 

Ward, Gen. Durbin . . . 368, 415 
William, Emperor of Germany . 145 



OUR BIBLE. 

'^T'HAT glory gilds the sacred page, 
^Y Majestic like the sun ! 
It gives a light to every age, 
It gives but borrows none." 

The word of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. 
Psa. xix. 7. 

(31) 




OUR BIBLE. 

;HIS blessed book I^d rather own 
Than all the gold and gems 
\i That e'er in monarchs' coffers shone, 
%'S^^^ Than all their diadems. 

Nay, were the whole sea one chrysolite^ 

The earth a golden ball, 
And diamonds all the stars of night, 

This book were worth them all. 
Here He who died on Calvary's tre>e 

Hath made that promise blest, 
Ye weary, heavy laden, come to me 

And I will give you rest. 
A bruised reed I will not break, 

A contrite heart despise, 
My burden's light, and all who take 
My yoke shall win the prize." 
(32) 




lLn= 




OUR BIBLE. 

[written expressly for this work by AMANDA 
ELIZABETH DENNIS.] 



GLORIOUS GIFT of Love Divine ! 
What heart can seek for surer sign 

Of love's divine completeness? 
We lift our tender, reverent eyes, 
And fold our palms in thankful guise 
For thine untold repleteness. 



Athrong the dust of ages gone, 
Thine everlasting truths shine on, 

Unchanged, undimmed, unfaded ; 
Along the passing years' swift flight, 
In letterings of immortal light. 

They gleam, untouched, unshaded. 

Our deepest anguish finds a balm. 
Our wildest storm a blessed calm. 

Our dearest hopes fruition ; 
Our fondest hopes are blent with praise, 
And dear rest crowns th-e weariest days 

Beneath thy sweet tuition. 

O glorious Book ! O Gift Divine ! 
No earthly love shall live like thine, 

By gloom of years unshaded ; 
Thy truths shall gild forevermore 
Faith's ^'Promised Land," life's "Farther Shore," 

When eartlily things have faded. 



(33) 




THE BIBLE. 



HE Bible is the book of life, written for the in- 
struction and edification of all ages and nations. 
No man who has felt its divine beauty and power 
^^ would exchanore this one volume for all the liter- 



'^ 



ature of the world. Eternity alone can unfold the 
extent of its influence for good. 

The Bible, like the person and work of our Saviour, 
is theanthropic in its character and aim. The eternal per- 
sonal word of God was made flesh, and the whole fulness of 
the Godhead and of sinless manhood were united in one per- 
son forever. So the spoken word of God may be said to 
have become flesh in the Bible. 

It is, therefore, all divine, and yet all human, from begin- 
ning to end : through the veil of the letter we behold the 
glory of the eternal truth of God. The divine and human 
in the Bible sustain a similar relation to each other, as in the 
person of Christ: they are unmixed, yet inseparably united, 
and constitute but one life, which kindles- life in the heart 
of the believer. 

Viewed merely as a human or literary production, the 
Bible is a marvellous book, and without a rival. All the 
libraries of theology, philosophy, history, antiquities, poetry, 
law and policy would not furnish material enough for so rich 
a treasure of the choicest gems of human genius, wisdom and 
experience. 

It embraces works of about forty authors, representing the 
extremes of society, from the throne of the king to the boat 

(34) 



THE BIBLE. 35 

of the fisherman. It was written daring a long period of 
sixteen centuries, on the banks of the Nile, in the desert of 
Arabia, in the land of promise, in Asia Minor, in classical 
Greece, and in imperial Rome : it commences with the crea- 
tion and ends with the final glorification, after describing all 
tiie intervening stages in the Revelation of God and the spir- 
itual development of man ; it uses all forms of literary com- 
position ; it rises to the highest heights and descends to the 
lowest depths of humanity. It measures all states and con- 
ditions of life ; it is acquainted with every grief and every 
woe ; it touches every chord of sympathy ; it contains the 
spiritual biography of every human heart; it is suited to 
every class of society, and can be read with the same inter- 
est and profit by the king and the beggar, by the philosopher 
and the child ; it is as universal as the race, and reaches 
beyond the limits of time into the boundless regions of 
eternity. 

Even this matchless combination of human excellencies 
point to its divine character and origin, as the absolute per- 
fection of Christ's humanity, as, an evidence of his divinity; 
but the Bible is first and last a book of religion : it presents 
tiie only true, universal and absolute religion of God, both 
in its preparatory process or growth under the dispensation 
of the law and the promise, and in its completion under the 
dispensation of the gospel. A religion which is intended 
ultimately to absorb all the other religions of the world, it 
speaks to us as immortal beings on the highest, noblest and 
most important themes which can challenge our attention, 
and with an authority that is absolutely irresistible and over- 
whelming. It can instruct, edify, warn, terrify, appease, 
cheer and encourage as no other book. It seizes man in the 
hidden depths of his intellectual and moral constitution and 



36 THE BIBLE 

goes to tbe quick of the soul, to that mysterious point where 
it is connected with the unseen world and with the great 
Father of spirits. 

It acts like an all-penetrating and all-transforming leaven 
upon every faculty of the mind and every emotion of the 
heart. It enriches the memory ; it elevates the reason ; en- 
livens the imagination; it directs the judgment; it moves 
the affections ; it controls the passions ; it quickens the con- 
science ; it strengthens the will. It kindles the sacred fiamo 
of faith, hope, charity; it purifies, ennobles, sanctifies the 
whole man, and brings him into living union with God. It 
cannot only enlighten, reform and improve, but regenerate 
and create anew, and produce effects which lie far beyond 
the power of human genius. 

It has light for the blind, strength for the weak, food for 
the hungry, drink for the thirsty ; it has a counsel in pre- 
cept or example for every relation. of life, a. comfort for every 
sorrow, a balm for every wound. Of all the books in the 
world the Bible is the only one of which w^e never tire, but 
which we admire and love more and more in proportion as 
we use it. 

Like the diamond, it casts its lustre in every direction; 
like a torch, the more it is shaken the more it shines ; like 
a healing herb, the harder it is pressed the sweeter is its 
fragrance. — Philip Scliaff. 



There is one argument for the purity and divinity of the 
Bible more potent and unanswerable than all the evidences 
that have ever been collated — it is universally hated by bad 
men. — The Methodist Protestant, 



THE BIBLE. 37 



THE BIBLE INDEPENDENT OF ALL 
OTHER BOOKS. 

N relation to other books, the Bible occupies a 
p)^ peculiar and solitary position. It is independent 
i ir. js ^ ^^ ^^ others ; it imitates no other books ; it 
^^^Q copies none; it hardly alludes to any other, 
?^^^^-^ whether in praise or blame, and this is nearly as 
^ true of its later portions, when books were common, as 
' of its earlier, when books were scarce. It proves thus 
its originality and power. Mount Blanc does not measure 
himself with Jura, does not name her, nor speaks save when 
in thunder he talks to her of God. T7ie7i only, too, does 
she 

"Answer from her misty shroud, 
Back to the joyous Alps." 

John never speaks of Plato, nor Paul of Demosthenes, nor 
Jesus of any wa^iter, save Moses and the Prophets. In those 
great heights, you feel, blowing round your temples and 
stirring your hair, the free, original, ancient Breath of the 
upper world, unconventional, unmixed, and irresistible as 
the mountain tempest. 

It is a book unlihe all others — the points of difference 
being these, among many more : First. There is a certain 
grand unconsciousness, as in Niagara, speaking now in the 
same tone to the tourists of a world, as when she spoke to 
the empty wilderness and the silent sun ; as in the Hima- 
layan hills, which cast the same looks of still sovereignty 
over an India unpeopled after the Deluge, as over an India 
the hive of swelterino; nations. Thus burst forth cries of 



33 THE BIBLE. 

Nature, the voices of the Prophets, and thus do their eyes 
from the high places of the world overlook all the earth. 
You are aware again, in singular union with this profound 
unconsciousness and simplicity, of a knowledge and insight 
equally profound. It is as though a child should pause 
amid her play, and tell you the secrets of your heart, and 
the particulars of your after history. The bush beside your 
path suddenly begins to sigh forth an oracle in "words un- 
utterable." That unconscious page seems like the wheel in 
Ezekiel's vision, to be " full of eyes," and open it wherever 
you may, you start back in surprise or terror, feeling " this 
book knows all about us ; " it eyes us meaningly ; it is a 
"discerner of the thoughts and intents of our hearts." 
Those herdsmen, vinedressers, shepherds, fishermen, and 
homeless wanderers are coeval with all time, and see the 
end from the beginning. 

You perceive again the presence of a high and holy pur- 
pose pervading the book, which is to trace and promulgate 
the existence of certain spiritual laws, originally communi- 
cated by God, developed in the historj^ of a peculiar people, 
illustrated by the ruin of nations, proclaimed in a system of 
national religion and national poetry, and at last sealed, 
cemented, and spread abroad through the blood and Gospel 
of One who had always been expected, and who at last 
arrived, the Christ promised to the Fathers. It is this which 
renders the Bible, in all its parts, religious and holy ; casts 
over its barest portions such an interest as the shadow of the 
Fierj^ Pillar gave to the sand and shrubs over which it passed, 
makes what otherwise appear trifles, great as trappings of 
Godhead, and extracts from fiction and fable, from the 
crimes of the evil and the failings of the good, aid to its 
main object, and illustrations of its main principles. 



THE BIBLE. 39 

You find yourselves again in the presence of a " true 
thing/' We hear of the spell of fiction, but a far stronger 
spell is that of truth ; indeed, fiction derives its magic from 
the quantity of truth it contrives to disguise. In this book 
you find truth occasionally, indeed, concealed under the garb 
of allegory and fable, but frequently in a form as naked and 
majestic as Adam .vi^hen he rose from the green sward of 
Eden. "This is true!" we exclaim, ''were all else a lie." 
Here we have found men earnest as the stars, speaking to 
us in language which, by its very heat, impetuosity, unworld- 
liness, fearlessness, almost if not altogether imprudence, 
severity, and grandeur, proves itself sincere^ if there be sin- 
cerity in earth or in heaven. 

Once more, the Bible, you feel, answers a question which 
other books cannot. This — the question of questions, the 
question of all ages — is, in our vernacular and expressive 
speech, "What shall I do to be saved?'' "How shall I be 
peaceful, resigned, holy, and hopeful here, and how happy 
hereafter, when this cold cloak — the body — has fallen off 
from the bounding soul within ? " To this, the " Iliad " of 
Homer, the plays of Shakespeare, the " Celeste Mechanique" 
of La Place, and the works of Plato, return no proper reply. 
To this immense query the book lias given an answer which 
may theoretically have" been interpreted in various ways, 
but which, as a practical truth, he who runs may read ; 
which has satisfied the souls of millions ; which none ever 
repented of obeying, and on which many of the wisest, the 
most learned, the most slow of heart to believe, as well as 
the ignorant and simple-minded, have at last been content 
to lean their living confidence and their dying peace. 

The book we are thus justified in proclaiming to be 
superior to all other books that have been, or are, or shall 



40 THE BIBLE. 

ever be on earth. And this, not that it forestalls coming 
books, or includes all their essential truths within it; not that 
in polish, art, or instant effect, it can be exalted above the 
written masterpieces of human genius — what comparison in 
elaboration, any more than what comparison in girth and 
greatness, between the cabinet and the oak — but it is, that 
the Bible, while bearing on its summit the hues of a higher 
heaven, over-topping with ease all human structures and 
aspirations — in earth, but not of it — communicating with the 
omniscience, and recording the acts of the omnipotence of 
God — is at the same time the Bible of the poor and lowly, 
the crutch of the aged, the pillow of the widow, the eye of the 
blind, the " boy's own book," the solace of the sick, the light 
of the dying, the grand hope and refuge of sim^Dle, sincere, 
and sorrowing spirits — it is this which at once proclaims its 
unearthly origin, and so clasps it to the great common heart 
of humanity, that the extinction of the sun were not more 
mourned than the extinction of the Bible, or than even 
its receding from its present pride of place. For, while 
other books are planets shining with reflected radiance, 
this book, like the sun, shines with ancient and unborrowed 
ray. 

Other books, to their loftiest altitudes, spring from earth ; 
this book looks down from heaven high, other books appeal 
to understanding or fancy; this book to conscience and to 
faith. Other books seek our attention ; this book demands 
it: it speaks with authority, and not as the scribes. Other 
books guide gracefully along the earth, or onwards to the 
mountain summits of the ideal ; this, and this alone, con- 
ducts up the awful abyss which leads to heaven. 

Other, books, after shining their little season, may perish 
in flames, fiercer than those which destroyed the Alexandrian 



THE BIBLE. ■ 41 

Library; this must, in essence, remain pure as gold, but 
unconsumable as asbestos in the general conflagration. 

Other books may be forgotten in a universe where suns 
go down and disappear like bubbles in the stream ; the 
memory of this book shall shine as the brightness of that 
eternal firmament and those higher stars which are for ever 
and ever. — George .Gilfillan 



SUPERIORITY OF THE BIBLE. 

ET those, who will, hang rapturously o'er 
The flowing eloquence of Plato's page, 

Repeat, with flashing eye, the sounds that pour 
From Homer's verse as with a torrent's rao^e : 
Let those, who list, ask Tully to assuage 

Wild hearts with high-wrought periods, and restore 
The reign of rhetoric, or maxims sage 
Winnow from Seneca's sententious lore. 

Not these, but Judah's hallowed bards, to me 
Are dear ; Isaiah's noble energy ; 
The temperate grief of Job ; the artless strain 

Of Ruth and pastoral Amos ; the high songs 
Of David, and the tale of Joseph's wrongs, 
Simply pathetic, eloquently plain. 

— Sir Aubrey JDe Vere, 

If anything I have ever said or written deserves the 
feeblest encomiums of my fellow-countrymen, I have no hesi- 
tation in declaring that for their partiality I am indebted, 
solely indebted, to the daily and attentive perusal of the 
Holy Scriptures, the source of all true poetry and eloquence, 
as well as of all good and all comfort. — Daniel Webster, 





42 THE BIBLE. 



THE BIBLE IS NOW ABROAD IN ALL 
THE WORLD. 

HE BIBLE is now abroad in all the world — so 
fairly and fully exposed that it can never again 
be concealed. There have been times, both be- 
"^ fore and since its completion, when in part or in 
whole, it was withdra^vn from society and almost 
gotten. Prior to the restoration of the law by Ezra 
it appears that the most of the books of the Old Testa- 
ment had well-nigh perished. Under Antiochus Epiphanes 
all of them were ordered to be destroyed, and such persons 
as secreted any of them vvere doomed to death. Under 
Dioclesian an edict was issued requiring the whole Bible to 
be burnt throughout the whole Roman Empire — on which 
occasion myriads of Christians preferred death with the 
book to life without it. Finally, the church itself — that is, 
the Apostate Church — after long-continued neglect or abuse 
of the Scriptures, and consequent increasing corruption, 
formally forbade their use to the laity, and still m.ore strictly 
prohibited the translation of them into the vulgar tongue. 
What w^as forbidden to the laity soon became useless to 
the clergy ; and so, before the age of Luther, the Bible had 
nearly vanished from all observation. 

But those times have passed, never, we trust, to be re- 
newed. The book is abroad in all the w^orld. Protestant 
Christendom is filled with it, from centre to circumference. 
Around all the borders of Eomanism its voice is heard, like 
the trumpet of the resurrection. The out-posts of Moham- 
medanism and Paganism are all startled by the same 



THE BIBLE, 43 

awakening music. And, "whether they will hear or 
whether they will forbear," it is plain that, ere long, all 
inankind must acknowledge its presence and its power. 

See! the sensible form in which it appears inckides a 
vast variety of modifications. As a book, it exists, of course, 
either in manuscript or in print, and its records are either 
originals or versions. 

It is a remarkable fact, that not a single autograph of the 
Holy Scriptures is known to be in existence. On the other 
hand, it is at least possible that not a single autograph has 
been destroyed. And it is a pleasant thought, that he who 
lived from the beginning, and yet once " was dead ; " whose 
body lay in the grave, and whose soul entered the place of 
spirits; who is now " alive forever more," and has " the keys 
of hell and of death," of hades and of the grave ; who car- 
ries these keys at his girdle, and hands them at his will to 
Latrobe, or Layard, or any of his servants, to open the gal- 
leries where he has treasured the historic memorials of his 
reign and confirmations of his word, may some time direct 
the unlocking of a chamber within which shall be found the 
real originals of the Bible in unimpaired preservation. 

Meantime, the study of the extant manuscripts, especially 
of the accepted originals, both Hebrew and Greek, must be 
exceedingly interesting to those who are thoroughly qualified 
to pursue it. Even their external history is full of interest: 
their number and age, the materials on which and with 
which they were prepared, the extraordinary care which 
was taken to make them accurate, and, in many instances, 
most richly beautiful, the veneration with which they were 
preserved, the costly collections and laborious collations of 
them, their comparative critical reputation and influence, 
their present local distribution and accessibleness ; these, 



44 THE BIBLE. 

and other points, might well claim, and would amply reward, 
attention. It is enough, liowever, for the occasion to com- 
pile the following particulars : 

The Hebrew manuscripts are of two classes, sacred and 
common, or, synagogue rolls and private copies. " The 
synagogue rolls are uniform, hardly differing one from 
another, written on the skins of clean animals, prepared for 
the particular use of the synagogue by a Jew." The private 
copies " are in different forms — folio, quarto, octavo, duo- 
decimo — and their material is mostly parchment, sometimes 
eastern paper, and even common paper." Both kinds of 
course were wrought with extraordinary care ; but of the 
former it may be said that it is almost impossible to exag- 
gerate the pains that were taken to secure their accuracy 
and sanctity. As would be expected, the more ancient they 
are the more rare they are. Dr. Kennicott is said to have 
collated six hundred and thirty, and De Rossi more than 
four hundred, the two ^' upwards of eleven- hundred." Of 
Dr. Kennicott's, fifty-one were supposed to be from six to 
eight hundred years old, and a hundred and seventy-four 
from four hundred and eighty to five hundred and eighty 
years old. Of De Eossi's, some were said to be of the 
seventh or eisfhth centurv, which would make them now 
eleven or twelve hundred years old. A more reliable cur- 
rent authority, however, not long since declared that, so far 
" as certainty is concerned," the " oldest Hebrew MS. 
at present known belongs to A. D. 1106," making it now 
seven hundred and fifty-one years old. And yet the same 
authority more recently alludes to another collation "by 
Pinner, at Odessa," resulting in the discovery of one MS. 
of the sixth century (580), two of the ninth, and two of 
the tenth — the oldest, if correctly represented, being twelve 



THE BIBLE. 45 

hundred and seventy-seven years old. From these dates 
they multiply to their whole present number — those which 
have been produced since the fifteenth century being reported 
as "very numerous." 

The Greek MSS., the accepted originals of the New 
Testament, are older than the 'Hebrew. Their materials are 
vellum or paper. In the oldest of them there are none of 
our common divisions, but words and sentences flow on in 
unbroken lines of capital letters. In a brief list which I 
have examined, one is a^ttributed to the fourth century, two 
are ascribed to the fifth, five to the sixth, six to the seventh, 
three to the eighth, and eight to the ninth — the earliest of 
them, therefore, being some fifteen hundred years old, and 
the latest about a thousand. 

Similar brief notice might be taken of the ancient ver- 
sions — ^whether Greek, Oriental, Latin, Gothic, Slavonic, or 
Anglo-Saxon. The principal of them number more than 
twenty ; and, of course, the design of making them was to 
present the Divine Record in the living languages of the 
people for common use. They were all vulgates. 

It is enough, however, for my purpose to add the remark, 
that the world has been searched by Jews, Romanists, and 
Protestants, and that, as the result of the search so far, 
copies of the most important of all classes of sacred manu- 
scripts, both originals and versions, have been largely col- 
lected and diligently collated, and are now known, located, 
numbered, described, and, in common with multitudes of in- 
ferior value, distributed in public and private libraries and 
among the synagogues and monasteries of all lands, are 
generally free to scholastic investigation. 

It is in relation to modern versions, however, that the fact 



46 THE BIBLE. 

I wish to illustrate becomes most impressive, and especially 
as connected with operations of the art of printing. 

The first printed book was the Latin Bible, the Mazarin 
Bible, as it is called, from the discovery of a copy of it in 
the last century in the library of the cardinal of that name. 
The date assigned to it is 1455. " We may see in imagina- 
tion," says Mr. Hallam, " this venerable and splendid 
volume leading up the crowded myriads of its followers, and 
imploring as it were, a blessing on the nev/ art, by dedicating 
its first fruits to the service of heaven." Since then four 
hundred years have gone by, and, to a considerable extent, 
they have all been employed in printing Bibles; within the 
last half century, however, aji altogether incomparable work 
has been accomplished in this connection by means of Bible 
Societies. Since 1804 more than fifty-four millions of Bibles 
and Testaments have been thus distributed. The list of 
"languages into which translations of the Scriptures have 
either been made or attempted" included, six years ago, some 
two hundred and thirty. Doubtless the number has since 
increased. The versions of course are much more numer- 
ous, as in many instances a single language like our own has 
quite a large variety of them. In "The Bible of Every 
Land " may be found about two hundred and seventy " typo- 
graphical specimens" of different translations. Of these, 
nearly two hundred have been published by the Bible 
Societies, and more than a hundred and twenty of this 
number were "never before printed." According to official 
statements, they have been circulated wherever practicable, 
in adaptation to national and provincial peculiarities, in 
every district of Western, Northern, Central, and Southern 
Europe ; in Russia ; in the Caucasian and other border 
countries; in Persia; in India — Northern, Central, and 



THE BIBLE. 47 

Southern — in Ceylon ; in the Indo-Chinese countries ; in the 
Chinese Empire ; in Hither Polynesia^ Further Polynesia, 
Africa, and America. 

Meantime, as one effect of this universal charity, the 
Bible trade, as it may be distinctively called, instead of 
being checked, has been wonderfully quickened, strengthened, 
and enlarged. Notwithstanding the copies given away, and 
the readiness with which they may be almost anywhere 
obtained, no book in the world sells like the Bible. Within 
the period already alluded to, therefore, thousands of private 
publishers — some with state patronage, others with church 
patronage, but most of them without either, and all far 
more at liberty than the Bible Societies — have issued, it is 
reported, upwards of fifty millions more, seemingly in every 
possible diversity of style, and accommodated to every age 
and condition of life, every desire of taste, and every degree 
of ability to buy. In reality, however, it is believed that 
the diversity has just begun, and that hereafter it will be 
greatly extended and incomparably improved. 

And now, tell me — Is not the Bible fairly and fully abroad, 
and beyond all possibility of reconcealment ? who can follow 
its flight? every effort to do so is discouraging. Whatever 
centre I occupy, I see the Bible passing away — in a thousand 
forms, by a thousand lines — to the utmost circumference. 
If I follow it in one line the others are left unexplored. 

A sort of bird's-eye-view — or rather angel's view — is all 
that is allowed me. To gain this, for a moment, I soar into 
the sky and poise myself there. 

And what now ? I ask for the nations and tribes who read 
the languages and dialects in which the Bible has been so 
far printed. I wish to see them in all their localities and 
other associations. 



48 THE BIBLE, 

"Fold your pinions," says the angel in the sun, "and 
stand by my side. Instead of descending in a moment, you 
must wait twenty-four hours, and watch the revolution of 
the whole globe ; for there is not a spot on its surface where 
some one of these languages does not reach." 

And so I wait and watch, and find it is even so. I see 
these readers — self-taught, mission-taught, home-taught, or 
school-taught — in all natural conditions, from the equator to 
the poles — enduring every climate, traversing every sea, 
covering every continent, and filling every island — scaling 
the mountains, cultivating the plains, girding and crossing 
the deserts. I see them in all civil conditions — savage, 
barbarians, semi-civilized, and wholly civilized : among the 
latter, monarchists, aristocrats, and republicans, abolutists, 
constitutionalists, and revolutionists. I see them in all 
religious conditions — Fetichists, Foheists, Boodhists, Brah- 
minists, Parseeists, Mohammedans, Jews, and Christians : 
among the latter, Romanists and Jansenists, Orthodox 
Greeks and Heterodox Greeks, established Protestants and 
Dissenting Protestants. I see them, moreover, in all social 
conditions — sovereigns, nobles, and magistrates; priests and 
pastors; scholars and philosophers; professors of literature, 
science, and art; merchants and manufacturers; mechanics 
and operators ; farmers and planters ; herdsmen and shep- 
herds ; hunters and fishermen ; soldiers and sailors ; paupers 
and slaves; dwelling in caves and thickets, in tents and 
huts, in cabins and mansions, in castles and palaces, in col- 
leges and convents, in hamlets, towns, cities, and mighty 
capitals — or, again, off-shore, in canoes, in ships, on vast 
rafts, or in fixed fleets — great water capitals rivalling those 
on land ; and, moreover, with all varieties of dress and ad- 
dress, ceremonies, manners, customs, and usages, at births, 



THE BIBLE. 49 

weddings, and funerals, in private and in public, in all the 
stages and relations of life — in connections quite innumer- 
able and indescribable. 

Wherever I look, I see the same visitant — the Bible. 
Everywhere it bears the same message — the same to old 
nations and new, to the people of yesterday, and the people 
with a history of two or three thousand years. Moreover, 
in substance it is a message equally needed by all and 
equally adapted to all. 

I ask for the motives and objects of the various parties 
employed in this cause of Bible distribution at home and 
abroad. Why is there so much zeal in regard to this one 
book ? It is not so with the sacred books of other religions. 
Even the kings and priests having them in charge do nothing 
to promote their circulation. Rather, they are careful to keep 
them seckided. How is this ? Why does not some one of 
the many Mohammedan nations form Koran Societies, to 
fill the world with Korans ? Why are there no Zend Avesta 
Societies among the» Parsees? Why no Veda Societies 
among the Hindoos ? Why no King's Societies among the 
Chinese ? Why no Edda Societies among the antiquarian 
Scandinavians? Is it not strange that there are no such 
societies ? And yet stranger facts are found nearer home. 
Why have the Jews no Bible Societies? Why the Roman 
Catholics none? Why the Greek Catholics none? Why 
the Oriental Churches none? Nay, why are Unevangelical 
Protestants without them? Nay, still further, why are 
some of our Evangelical Churches beginning to draw off and 
stand aloof from the Bible Societies ? As to Pagans, they 
make no pretension to the means of a common salvation. 
As to Mohammedans, if they ever had -such pretensions, 
they have lost confidence in them. Besides, their trust was 



50 THE BIBLE. 

always in the sword rather than the book. As to the Jews^ 
they know that the Old Testament alone is an imperfect 
revelation, and are waiting themselves for the consummating 
development. As to the Catholics, they all substitute the 
Church for the Bible. As to Unevangelical Protestants, 
they are chilled by doubt and checked by error, and can 
make no progress in good. And as to the withdrawing 
Evangelicals, they are becoming less Christian and more 
sectarian every day. Only the Bible Societies, and their 
supporters of all parties, seem to be influenced by the highest 
motives and devoted to the noblest objects. In contrast to 
Pagans, they do claim the means of a common salvation. 
In contrast to Mohammedans, their confidence increases 
rather than declines. In contrast to Jews, they possess the 
perfected revelation. In contrast to Catholics, they ac- 
knowledge the Bible as infallible instead of the Church. In 
contrast to the Unevangelicals, they are all aglow with faith 
and impelled by truth. And in contrast to their offended 
brethren among the Evangelicals, they daily become less 
and less sectarian and more and more Christian. In a word, 
with certain exceptions which it may be hoped will disap- 
pear, their motives and objects are worthy of all commenda- 
tion — immediately and exclusively connected with the one 
all-sufficient and incomparable work of glorifying God in the 
salvation of mankind. It is the just appreciation of their 
work in these two relations that sustains their zeal. Private 
publishers, in most instances, find their reward in pecuniary 
profits. Sectarian publishers blend personal and partisan 
interests in deceitful semblance of Christian sublimity. But 
.the true sublime is with those who have nothing to do but to 
fill the world with the highest truth for the glory of God, 
and the entire and eternal redemption of man. They 



THE BIBLE. 51 

" rejoice with joy unspeakable " that the Bible is at last 
abroad in all the world, and that it can never again be con- 
cealed. They are not like those who fear for its fate. " Do 
not send it forth without Tradition," say some. " Do not let 
it loose without the Apocrypha," say others. " Do not trust 
it without the Prayer-book," say others. " Do not expose it 
without the Creed, or Confession, or Constitution, or Pla1>- 
form, or Discipline," say others. " We have no fear," reply 
the faithful ones. We would as soon charge God with 
folly for issuing the sun without the pendant of a lamp to 
illustrate it, as for issuing the Bible without the attachment 
of some human authority to make it plain. No, no, let it 
go, even as the sun itself goes, asking no patronage of men 
or angels, but demonstrating its Divinity by the silent, 
serene, and blissful vitality of its supreme, universal, and 
perpetual glory. — T. H, Stockton. 



MORAL POWER OF THE BIBLE. 

4^b OES this Bible change the cliaracter and the lives 
of those who embrace it ? I would I could take 
you to a little village near my station, where 
they had embraced Christianity in a body but 
eight months before, and where the high priest of 
the temple near by came secretly to me in my tent, 
and asked me : " Sir, will you please impart -to me the 
secret : what is it that makes that Bible of yours have such 
power over the lives of those that embrace it? Now, it is 
but eight months since these people joined you. Before 
that they were quarrelsome, they were riotous, they were 




52 THE BIBLE. 

lazy, they were shiftless ; and now see what a difference 
there is in thenn. Now they are active, they are energetic, 
they are haborious, they never drink, they never quarrel. 
Why, sir, I joined in the persecution when they became 
Christians, and tried to stamp out Christianity before it 
gained a foothold here, but they stood firm, and now in all 
the region around here the people all respect and honor 
them. What is it that makes the Bible have such a power 
over the lives of those that embrace it? Our Yedas have 
no such power. Please, sir, give me the secret ? " 

Does it sustain its recipients? Our first convert in the 
new region, in the Telugu Country, where I went in 1863, 
w^as a young Brahmin. We knew that there was danger of 
his being murdered, and tried to guard him. But after 
a while he was decoyed away and taken over one hundred 
miles to a town where his relatives lived. He was immured 
in a close room. Nothing was left him but a cloth around 
his loins. In the room there was naught but a grass-mat 
for him to lie on, with another to cover him. Day by day 
just a little rice and salt were placed there for him to eat, 
just enough to keep body and soul together; and he was 
told that he should never come out alive unless he abjured 
his new fangled doctrines and came back to Orthodox 
Hinduism. His grandfather, a wealthy man, offered half 
his fortune to the Brahmins if they w^ould reconvert him. 
They brought the logicians, the rhetoricians, and the priests 
of all the region to argue with him. They had taken away 
his Bible. They argued with him, and they kept him for 
months. I have not time to tell you the thrilling story of 
his escape, but at last he got back to us, all skin and bones ; 
he had lost all his flesh, but had not lost his faith and his 
trust in Jesus, nor his love for the Bible. He had never 




PETER PREACHING ON PENTECOST. 



Repent, and be baptized every one of you 
in the name of Jesus Christ for the remis- 
sion of sins, and ye shall receive the gift 
of the Holy Ghost. Acts 2: 38. 



THE BIBLE. 53 

denied him. A year after that we met his uncles who had 
imprisoned him. They said to us : " Sirs, what is it in 
that Bible of yours that gives such strength and courage to 
those that embrace it? Now, we had that nephew of ours 
right in our power; we told him that he should never get 
away alive unless he renounced Christianity, and there was 
no probability that' he would. He expected to die from starva- 
tion there ; but, sirs, every day, no matter who were there, 
he would kneel in his cell and he would pray to that Yesu 
Kristu, the Divine Redeemer, that he called God, and when 
he arose there was no doing anything w^ith him ; you never 
saw such a stubborn fellow. What is it that makes this 
Bible give such nerve and such courage to those that em- 
brace it ? " 

Does this Bible quell opposition ? Is it quick and power- 
ful ? I would take you to a scene in that same city of 
Hyderabad that I witnessed fourteen years ago ; there in a 
city, a walled town of 18,000 inhabitants, the people had 
arisen in a mob to drive us out because we tried to speak of 
another God than theirs. We had gone to the market- 
place, and I had endeavored to preach to them of Christ and 
his salvation, but they would not hear. They ordered us to 
leave the city at once, but I had declined to leave until I 
had delivered to them my message. The throng was filling 
the streets ; they told me if I tried to utter another word I 
should be killed; there was no rescue; they would have the 
city gates closed, and there should never any news go forth 
of what was done ; I must leave at once or I should not 
leave alive. I had seen them tear up the paving-stones and 
fill their arms with them to be ready, and one. was saying to 
another : you throw the first stone and I will throw the 
next. By an artifice, I need not stop to detail, I succeeded 



54 THE BIBLE. 

in getting permission to tell them a story before they stoned 
me, and then they might stone me if they wished. They 
were standing around me ready to throw the stones when I 
succeeded in getting them to let me tell the story first. I 
told them the story of all stories ; of the love of the Divine 
Father that had made us of one blood, who " so loved the 
world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever 
believeth in him might not perish, but have everlasting 
life." I told them the story of that birth in the manger at 
Bethlehem ; of that wonderful childhood, of that marvellous 
life, of those miraculous deeds, of the gracious words that 
he spake. 

I told them the story of the cross, and pictured in the 
graphic words that the Master gave me that day the 
story of our Saviour nailed upon the cross, for them, for 
me, for all the world ; when he cried in agony, " My God, 
my God, wh}^ hast thou forsaken me?'* When I told them 
that, I saw the men -go and throw their stones in the 
gutter and come back, and down the cheeks of the very 
men that had been clamoring the loudest for blood I saw the 
tears running and dropping off upon the pavement that they 
had torn up; and then I finished the story and told 
them how he had been laid in the grave, and after three 
days he had come forth triumphant, and had ascended again 
to heaven, and that there he ever lives to make intercession 
for them, for us, for all the world, and that through his 
merits every one of them there assembled could obtain re- 
mission of sin and eternal life. 

I told them that I had finished my story and that they 
might stone me now. But no : they didn't want to stone me 
nov/ ; they didn't know what a wonderful story I had come 
there to tell them. They came forward and bought eighty 



THE BIBLE. 55 

copies of the Scriptures and gospels and tracts, and paid the 
money for them, for they wanted to know more of that 
wonderful Saviour of whom I had told them. 

— Dr. Jacob Ghamherlain, 




INSPIRATION OF THE BIBLE. 

HENCE, but from Heaven, could men unskill'd in arts, 
In several ages born, in several parts, 
Weave such agreeing truths ? or how, or why, 
Should all conspire to cheat us with a lie? 

Unask'd their pains, ungrateful their advice, 

Starving their gain, and martyrdom their price. 

If on the book itself we cast our view, 

Concurrent heathens prove the story true ; 

The doctrine, miracles; which must convince, 

For Heaven in them appeals to human sense : 

And though they prove not they confirm the cause, 

When what is taught agrees with nature's laws. 

Therefore the style, majestic and divine. 

It speaks no less than God in every line : 

Commanding words ; whose force is still the same 

As the first fiat that produced our frame, 

All faiths beside, or did by arms ascend ; 

Or sense indulged has made mankind their friend : 

This only doctrine does our lusts oppose; 

Unfed by nature's soil, in which it grows ; 

Cross to our interests, curbing sense and sin ; 

Oppressed without, and undermined within, 

It thrives through pain ; its own tormentors tires. 

And with a stubborn patience still aspires. 

— John Drydm, 




THE BIBLE, 



PROOF OF SPIRITUAL INSPIRATION. 

OW sublime are their doctrinal developments ! 

The nature, characterj and government of God ; 

the spiritual universe ; the material universe ; 

the history, condition, and destiny of both : in 
all these connections, what an infinite loftiness and 
sweep of severe and simple thought there is ! What 
an assurance of truth there is ! What mind can even 
imagine the dissolution of this circle of accepted reality, and 
the substitution of something now unknown, as essential and 
eternal truth ? Certainly, the God of the Bible, the man of 
the Bible, the creation, providence, and redemption of the 
Bible — these are the facts that occupy immensity, and have 
no need to be superseded, and cannot be superseded. 

How holy, also, are the precepts of the Scriptures ! They 
are all embodiments of love, pure love, and nothing but 
love. They are full of love — love from God to every man, 
and to all men ; and love from every man to God, and from 
all men to each other. They are solemn with love — so 
solemn that they allow nothing ludicrous from the begin- 
ning of the Bible to the end of it. They are tender with 
love — so tender that they allow not the slightest disrespect 
toward God, or the least ill to mankind. They are happy 
with love — so happy that they intimate the source of God's 
own bliss, and make the obedient among men, under all 
circumstances, wishful of no other joy. They sanction the 
obligations and prescribe the duties, flowing from all rela- 
tions, and leave nothing to be desired, by individuals, by 
members of families, by neighbors, or by nations, but the 



THE BIBLE. 57 

due practical observance of their directions. The beauty 
of holiness is here — the dignity of holiness — the divinity 
of holiness. 

How remarkable, also, is the harmony of the Scriptures ! 
So many of them, so different in their special subjects and 
objects, and so variously produced — really, it is wonderful 
that they should be so consistent, so thoroughly pervaded 
by one supreme design, and so co-operatively intent on the 
same gracious and saving result. As in the sky over Bethle- 
hem, when one angel sang " Glory to God in the highest, 
and on earth peace, goodwill toward men," there was a 
multitude of other angels, at first unseen and unheard, to 
make the melody a sudden and mighty harmony : so, in the 
heaven of revelation, when even the least of the inspired 
ones lifts up a similar song, as though only to arouse the 
sleeping echoes around, the very leaders of the band, thouo^h 
before unnoticed, instantly acknowledge the ever charming 
challenge, and the whole company join the chorus without 
one lagging or jarring tone. 

How strangely, also, have the Scriptures been preserved ! 
Thousands of other books, more admired and prized by the 
great men of the world, have been utterly lost, or are known 
only by a few fragments — while these have been kept entire 
and comparatively uncorrupted. The effort has been to save 
other books, and yet they have perished. The effort has 
been to destroy the Scriptures, and yet they survive. 
Tyrants have assumed their utmost terrors, and threatened 
the holders of these books with death, and given to the 
flames all the copies extorted from the fears of the faithless, 
but other copies still escaped. Ten whole tribes of the very 
people among whom they originated have failed from the 
nations, and the remaining two are no longer separately 



58 THE BIBLE. 

distinguishable, but every one of their sacred books retains 
its place, and exercises, at this moment, a far more decided, 
extended, and impressive sovereignty, than in the days of 
old. The breath of God, on a bit of parchment, is infinitely 
mightier than the most magnificent empire on the globe. 
Not only tribes and kingdoms, but " heaven and earth " may 
pass away, and yet " one jot or one tittle shall in no wise 
pass from the law till all be fulfilled." 

But once more — how blessed, also, have been the effects 
of the Scriptures ! To a great extent, and in the noblest 
sense, they have already revolutionized the world. They 
have changed the principles, sentiments, and habits of man- 
kind; enlightening, purifying, and elevating all. In many 
cases they have reformed constitutions, equalized laws, and 
given a peaceable and liberal character to the administration 
of government. They imparted a new impulse to the 
progress of art and science, of literature and philosophy, 
and are, at this moment, carrying the elements of the highest 
civilization to the ends of the earth. Compare the vilest 
horde of savages with the purest society of Christians, and 
the advantages of the latter are only a partial demonstra- 
tion of the power of the Scriptures. Nay, compare the 
most degraded and disgusting individual savage with the 
most exalted and enchanting example of Christian wisdom 
and saintliness, and still the iUustration remains imperfect. 
That is, the Scriptures are capable of greater good than they 
have ever yet accomplished, even in the . best specimen of 
their influence. It is in personal rehitions, however, rather 
than social, that their actual effects are most admirable. 
They take the man as he is^ — whether high or low, rich or 
poor, bond or free, intelligent or ignorant, moral or immoral, 



THE BIBLE. 59 

sick or well^ living or dying, and make him and keep him, 
in fact or by promise, all he ought to be. 

Oh, what grandeurs of thought, what raptures of feeling, 
what glories of relation and destiny, they silently but surely 
excite and sustain ! How many myriads, like angels from 
heaven in disguise, are now living, in the midst of all the 
sins and sorrows of earth, holy and happy, through the 
sanctifying virtue of the Bible ! How many other myriads, 
like angels laying aside their disguise and returning to 
heaven, are now dying, in the paleness of perfect peace, or 
with the transfiguring splendor of triumphant joy — assured 
of a blissful immortality by the undoubted authority of the 
same cherished word ! 

And what now ? Can it be supposed that these Scrip- 
tures — so sublime in doctrine, so holy in precept, so har- 
monious in structure, so imperishable in texture, and so 
inestimably productive of spiritual and practical blessings — 
are of merely human origin ? Surely not. Read them, re- 
alize their influence, observe their influence, reflect upon the 
history of their influence, and innumerable most aflecting 
proofs will confirm the conclusion that they were given by 
inspiration of God. — T. H. Stocldon. 



This Divine Book, the only one which is indispensable to 
the Christian, need only be read with reflection to inspire 
love for its author, and the most ardent desire to obey its 
precepts. Never did virtue speak so sweet a language, never 
was the most profound wisdom expressed with so much energy 
and simplicity. No one can arise from its perusal without 
feeling better than he was before. — Rousseau, 



60 THE BIBLE, 



THE BIBLE PROVES ITSELF. 

^^r^'^?/ UPPOSE I had never seen or heard of a sewing- 
machine. I have no idea of its parts^ of its con- 
. struction, or of its use ; but after a time — no 
matter how — I come into possession of one ; it 
is not set up, however, or even put together. I 
^o^_^ have the wheels, and bands, and arms, and the cloth- 
^' phite, and the shuttle, and the needles, and the treadle; 
but not being a machinist, I do not know how to put the 
parts together so I put them away. 

By and by there comes to me through the mail a pamphlet; 
the post-mark is dim, and I cannot make it out ; it has no 
name on it, either of author or sender. I look it curiously 
through, and find it full of cuts and explanatory letterpress, 
and as I turn over the leaves I am struck by the resem- 
blance of some of the plates to some parts of the almost 
forgotten and useless machine. 

I look more closely and find that it is a guide for the set- 
ting up and running of what it calls a sewing-machine. I 
compare the pieces and the book, and following its in- 
structions I find it all goes accurately together. I thread 
the needle, and taking a piece of cloth I find it works 
precisely as the book said it would. 

Now I care not where the machine came from or where 
the book came from. I may not know who wrote the book, 
or even so much as that the inventor of the machine ever 
heard of him or his writing ; but I know the idea of him 
who made the machine and the idea of him who made the 
book are identical. In that wherein it pretends to be a 



THE BIBLE. gj 

guide — that is, in putting together and running the machine 
— it is an accurate guide-book, and being true for the ends 
for which it was made, it is for such ends an absohite 
authority. No conceivable thing could add to this authority. 
If it could be proved that the inventor of the machine wrote 
the book with his own hands, and that it was free from 
mistakes throughout, even to the grammar and punctuation, 
it could not add to its authority one iota. 

It works, it stands trial, it does what it claims to do. 
Now, suppose somebody should go to picking flaws in its 
grammar, or spelling, or chronological calculations, or ob- 
scurities of style, or because a stray leaf from an old almanac 
had got bound up in it; suppose, for such reasons, he should 
counsel throwing it away, and trusting to luck to get the 
machine together, would you not call him a fool ? 

Come back, now, to the book and the world, and see if j^ou 
have not for Christianity an argument equally simple. 
Here is a disordered humanity; w^e have only the separate 
and unjointed parts ; they do not work togeth-er. Here is 
also a book : it pictures the present condition of humanity, 
it tells how to put the parts together and make it complete. 
Try it by this test, on its principle — the principle of love — 
you can build up a perfect man, a perfect family, a perfect 
society. 

This one f^ict proves conclusively that the essential idea 
which is embodied in humanity and the essential idea of 
the book are the same, in that wherein it pretends to be a 
guide ; that is, putting together and building up humanity 
it is an accurate guide-book, and being thus true to the ends 
for which it was made, it is for such ends an absolute 
authority. — Minot F. Savage. 




62 ^HE BIBLE, 



THE PRESERVATION OF THE 
SCRIPTURES. 

S the wonderful harmony and connection of all 
the parts of the Scriptures cannot rationally be 
ascribed to any other cause than their being all 
dictated by the same spirit of wisdom and fore- 
:nowledge ; so also is their astonishing and (we 
say) miraculous preservation a strong instance of 
God's providential care^ a constant sanction and con- 
firmation of the truth contained in them, continued by him 
without intermission in all ages of the Church. 

Whence comes it, that while the histories of mighty 
empires are lost in the waste of time, the very names of 
their founders, conquerors, and legislators are consigned with 
their bodies to the silence and oblivion of the grave? 
Whence comes it that the history of mean, insignificant 
people, and the settlement of God's Church, should from its 
very beginning, which is coeval with the world itself, to 
this day remain full and complete ? Whence comes it that 
nothing is left of innumerable volumes of philosophy and 
polite literature, in the preservation of which the admiration 
and care of all mankind seemed to conspire, and the Scrip- 
tures have in spite of all opposition come down to our time, 
entire and genuine ? 

During the captivity, the Urim and Thummim, the ark 
itself, and every glory of the Jewish worship, were lost; 
during the profanation of Antiochus, whoever was found 
with the book of the Law was put to death, and every copy 
that could be found burned with fire; the same impious 



TRE BIBLE. 63 

artifice was put in practice by several Roman Emperors 
during their persecutions of the Christians, especially by 
Dioclesian, who triumphed in his supposed success against 
them. After the most barbarous havoc of them, he issued 
an edict, commanding them, on pain of death under the 
most cruel forms, to deliver up their Bibles. Though many 
complied with this' sanguinary edict, the greater part disre- 
garded it ; and notwithstanding these and numberless other 
cahimities, the sacred volumes have survived, pure and 
uncorrupted, to the present time. It is not necessary to 
mention that more than Egyptian darkness which over- 
whelmed religion for several centuries; during which any 
falsification was secure, especially in the Old Testament, the 
Hebrew language being entirely unknown to all but the 
Jews; and yet they have, in spite of their prejudices, pre- 
served with scrupulous care even those passages which most 
confirm the Christian religion ; the providence of God having 
been graciously pleased to make their blindness a standing 
evidence of the truth of the Scriptures, and their obstinacy 
an instrument to maintain and promote his doctrine and his 
kingdom. 

To this may be added the present low state of many 
churches, and the total annihilation of others, of which 
nothing now remains but the Scriptures translated for their 
use; happy in this respect, that their particular misfortune is 
of service to the general cause, insomuch as so many copies, 
in so many different languages, preserved under so many 
untoward circumstances, and differing from each other in no 
essential point, are a wonderful proof of their authenticity, 
authority and divinity. All the designs of the enemies of 
the Scriptures, whether ancient or modern, have been 
defeated. The Bible still exists, and is triumphant, and 




64 THE BIBLE. 

doubtless will exist as long as there is a church in the world; 
that is, until the end of time, and the consummation of all 
things. — Thomas Hartwell Home, 



THE PRESERVATION OF THE BIBLE 
A STANDING MIRACLE. 

HEN Europe arose from her w^atery grave, bear- 
ing on her bosom, like some re-born isle, treasures 
^ffr^ij^ long buried in the deep ; though many a pal- 
( oS::^ iinpsest sea-worm had long worn its way through 
the most precious remains of literature and science; 
though philosoph}^ and the arts reappeared with features 
defaced and with many a mutilated limb; though of Livy, 
the historian, the more instructive half is irrevocably lost; 
of Polybius, almost the whole; though of Yarro, the con- 
temporary of Virgil — considered, by those who heard him, a 
bard able to strike the lyre to bolder measures, if not to more 
persuasive strains — not one lingering note has strayed 
behind him; of Menanders humor, not a shred remains; of 
Socrates, nought but the name, the example, and a few 
memorable drops of wisdom from his lips ; though of num- 
bers of authors, mentioned in terms of veneration by their 
contemporaries, all we can gather now consists barely of 
their names ; though thoughts, tens of thousands of tboughtvS, 
high and glorious thoughts, noble aspirations, bright and deep 
conceptions have been lost forever with the names of their 
owners, as unknown as the skulls from whence they were once 
evolved, now parcel of this earth — yet, blessed be God ! by a dis- 
posal of events, as marked by miraculous evidence as the pres- 
ervation of the dead body of Lazarus, pure and sweet in the 



THE BIBLE. 65 

tomb, the sacred records of redeeming love have been pre- 
served for men. 

Varro and the rest of them are gone forever ; but still is 
Moses extant, though upwards of three thousand years of 
age. Still are sketched out for us the first beginnings of 
what is now ; still come down to us the annals of those men 
whose plough first' furrowed this earth, ^' soft from the 
deluge." Still, "for our learning," the dealings of God with 
his people remain written. Still, have we recorded for our 
admonition, the rise and progress, the decline and fall, the 
flivors and the warnings, the struggles and the triumphs, 
the virtue and the corruption, the apostasy and the punish- 
ment of the ancient people of God. Still, through those 
long ages has come down to us that strange mysterious book 
of Job — allegory or biography, a poet's dream or a woefdl 
reality — wdiich celebrates the contest between piety and 
pietism, and the victory of the plain, home-spun, God- 
reliant heart, over the trite maxims of the Orthodox con- 
ventional expert; a book written for the nineteenth century 
of grace, as well as for the simple age when the shepherd 
watched the flocks of Jethro. Still can the royal psalmist 
tune his harp, and lead a myriad worshippers through the 
golden-gates of praise and prayer; still the wisdom of 
Solomon is here ; still he can pipe the epithalamium of 
Christ and his Church ; and " the man-about-town," in our 
modern Babylon, " stuffing his hoUowness " with " mouldy 
hay," can still find the " vanity and vexation " in his "vision 
of sin," depicted in the experiences of the ancient preacher, 
and from him learn that the judgment to which God shall 
bring every work, with every secret thing, is begun already^ 
even in this life. Still are the mighty prophets full in 
teachers in the education of the world, the reliable pioneers 

5 



66 THE BIBLE, 

in the progress of mankind, as halting on the successive 
heights of fulfilled prophecy : they point to far-off and 
greater glories yet to be revealed. Still can Matthew tell 
his plain, unvarnished tale, Mark corroborate the story, 
and the skilful Luke collect and record the testimony of 
his age ; still can John, the beloved, in humble gratitude, 
illustrate the wonder of incarnate Deity ; still are preserved 
for us the deep philosophy, the trenchant argument, the 
simple, sweeping eloquence of Paul ; still can James stimu- 
late to deeds worthy of our calling; still, with holy zeal, 
and undying fervor — his brows almost crowned in martyr- 
dom — the venerable Peter can watch and warn the Church; 
Jude exhort; and John, again, shed forth those drops of 
love, sweet and bright — the love of him who loved him, and, 
in sublime and mystic language — sublime since he speaks of 
heavenly things; mystic, since with inspired wisdom he 
beclouds the sunlit vision, and tempers it to suit our weak 
and trembling human gaze — describe the line and issue in 
and to which Eternal Providence doth shape events. These 
all — all these have been preserved for men — though Yarro 
and the rest of them are gone forever. 

In its preservation, this book — the Bible — is a standing 
miracle of the providence of the now of God, the ever-present, 
the ever-active, the ever-overruling, the ever-interposing in- 
fluence of the divine energy — the Divine Energetic One. I 
hold in my hand the proof of the energy of my Creator. I 
ask the Atheist to account for this hooh? When came it, 
and how? Why it be preserved intact, and how? And in 
accounting for its being here with us now, to explain, if he 
can, on any mere human grounds, how it is that a book 
written by illiterate shepherds and herdsmen, fishermen and 
taxgatherers, when the world was young, contains truths 



THE BIBLE, (57 

and suggests aspirations which find their echo and answer in 
the most advanced peridds and amongst the most cultivated 
people ? Why is this book, and this book only, the book for 
all peoples and all times? Why has this book, and almost 
this book only, been so fully, so wonderfully preserved 
through the long ages? Is not that wonder a sign, a 
miracle? — J. Stewart GumJey, 



THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST. 

HERE is not one book out of a thousand that lives 
five years ; any publisher will tell you that there 
^ will not be more than one book out of fifty 
thousand that will live a century. Yet here is a 
book, much of it 1,600 years old ; much of it 4,000 
years old, with more rebound and strength in it than 
when the book was first put upon parchment or papyrus. 
This book saw the cradle of all other books, and it will see 
their grave. Would you not think that an old book like 
this, some of it forty centuries old, would come along hob- 
bling with age and crutches ? Instead of that, more potent 
than any other book of the time, more copies of it printed 
in the last ten years than of any other book — Walter Scott's 
"Waverley" novels, Macaulay's " History of England," Dis- 
raeli's " Endymion," and all other popular books of the day 
having no such sales in the last ten years as this old book. 

Do you know what a struggle a book has to get through 
one century or two centuries ? A lot of books during a fire 
in a seraglio of Constantinople were thrown into the street ; 
a man without any education picked up one of those books, 
read it, and did not see the value of it; a scholar looked over 




68 THE BIBLE, 

liis shoulder and saw it was the first and second decades of 
Livy, and he offered the man a large reward if he would 
bring the books to his study ; but in the excitement of the 
fire the two parted, and the first and second decades of Livy 
were forever lost. Phny wrote twenty books of history, all 
lost. The most of Meander's writings lost. Of 130 com- 
edies of Plautus, all gone but twenty. Euripides wrote a 
hundred dramas, all gone but nineteen. Eschylus wrote a 
hundred dramas, all gone but seven. Yarro wrote the 
laborious biographies of 700 Romans, not a fragment left. 
Quintilian wrote his favorite book on the Corruption of 
Eloquence, all lost. Thirty books of Tacitus lost. Dion 
Cassius wrote eighty books, only twenty remain. Berosius' 
history all lost. Nearly all the old books are mummified 
and lying in the tombs of old libraries, and perhaps once in 
twenty years some man comes along and picks up one of 
them and blows the dust off, and opens it and finds it the book 
he does not want; but this old book, much of it forty 
centuries old, stands to-day more discussed than any other 
book, and it challenges the admiration of all the good, and 
the spite, and the venom, and the animosity, and the hyper- 
criticism of earth and hell. 

I appeal to your common sense if a book so divinely 
guarded and protected in its present shape must not be in 
just the way that God wants it to come to us, and if it 
pleases God, ought it not to please us ? Not only have all 
the attempts to detract from the book failed, but all the 
attempts to add to it; many attempts were made to add the 
apocryphal books to the Old Testament. The Council of 
Trent, the Synod of Jerusalem, the Bishops of Hippo, all 
decided that the apocryphal books must be added to the Old 
Testament. *' They must stay in," said those learned men; 



THE BIBLE. (59 

but tliev stayed out. There is not an intelligent Christian 
man that to-day will put the Book of Maccabeus or the' 
Book of Judith beside the Book of Isaiah or Romans. 
Then a great many said we must have books added to the 
New Testament, and there were epistles and gospels and 
apocalypses written and added to the New Testament; but 
they have all fallen out. You cannot add anything, you 
cannot subtract anything. Divinely protected book in the 
present shape : let no man dare to laj^ his hands on it with 
the intention of detracting from the book, or casting out 
any of these holy pages. — T. Dewitt Talmage, 



THE BIBLE SURVIVES FRIENDS AND 

FOES.^ 

HE volume itself survives both friends and foes. 
^ Without being able to speak one word on its own 
^ behalf, but what it has already said; without 
any power of explanation or rejoinder in deprecia- 
tion of the attacks made upon it, or to assist those 
who defend it; it passes along the ages in majestic 
silence. Impassive amidst all this tumult of controversy, 
in which it takes no part, it might be likened to some great 
ship floating down a mighty river, like the Amazon or the 
Orinoco, the shores of which are inhabited by various savage 
tribes. From every little creek or inlet, from every petty 
port or bay, sally flotillas of canoes, some seemingly friendly 
and some seemingly hostile, filled with warriors in all the 
terror of war-paint, and their artillery of bows and arrows. 
They are hostile tribes, and soon turning their weapons 
against one another, assail each other with great fury and 




70 THE BIBLE. 

mutual loss. Meantime the noble vessel silently moves on 
through the scene of confusion, without deigning to alter its 
course or to fire a shot ; perhaps here and there a seaman 
casts a compassionate glance from the lofty bulwarks, and 
wonders at the hardihood of those who come to assail his 
leviathan. — Henry Rogers. 



THE PYRAMID AMONG BOOKS. 

HAT has become of those millions of once famous 

books which were written in past ages ? Thej^ 

have nearly all perished, but amid this wreck of 

ancient literature the Bible stands almost a 

solitary monument, like the Pyramids of Egypt 

the surrounding wastes. — Archhishop Gibbons. 



THE BIBLE THE MARVEL OF THE 

AGES. 

H^s.^^^ Wg SIDE from the factor of divine agency in its 
authorship, the Bible is the insoluble enigma of 
the literary world. It well may be. It must be. 
Think of it! It is the oldest book upon the earthy 
still read among men ; going back beyond the Roman 
or the Greek literature ; going back farther than any 
other in parts of it, toward the time when the waters 
of the deluge subsided from the hills of Western Asia, farther 
than any other toward the very morning of creation, when 




THE BIBLE, 7X 

the sons of God shouted for joy, yet its vitality continues, 
and its power over the human mind remains unwasting. 

It is a large book ; it sets its stately front for two millen- 
niums along the lines of chronology, history, biography, 
philosophy, and human science. It challenges assault at 
ten thousand points. It says to science, " Search the strata 
beneath and the stars above, and find a God more equal to 
the problems of the universe than whom I reveal! " It says 
to philosophy, " Find anything in human nature, any power, 
or, any passion, any mean inclination or sublime possibility, 
of which I do not give the manifestation and the explana- 
tion : " thus challenging assault, and opening its line along 
the whole extent of it to any endeavor to overthrow it, it 
remains the most remarkable of books. 

It presents to us the literature of a people, in whom, aside 
from it and their relation to it, we have comparatively but 
insignificant interest. We read the Grecian poetry or phi- 
losophy, and it is luminous to us with the light of the Attic 
heavens, it is musical to us with the lofty echoes of the Attic 
life and history, all that is tragic, and all that is splendid in 
that history, commands the poetry or the philosophy to us. 
We read it partly for our love of the people which originated 
the most exquisite and perfect instrument of thought which 
the world has ever seen in the Greek language ; we read the 
pages of Roman law, Roman eloquence, Roman history, and 
they to our minds are reverberating with the tread of that 
mighty and imperial people, whose place in history is so 
eminent and large, and to which we ourselves are under 
such constant and immense obligation. But we read the 
literature of the Jewish People, and that people, except as 
connected with the literature which is thus presented to us, 
has for us no attraction, and but small importance. 



72 THE BIBLE. 

Then it is a book full of mysterious utterances, of thought 
and of fact. And the human mind does not love mystery. 
It desires plain statements of the truth, which it may receive, 
apprehending and understanding them at a glance. It pre- 
sents these utterances in a tone of authority, by which men 
are repelled ; for the human mind enjoys receiving sugges- 
tions from others, enlightening instructions, delicately and 
persuasively communicated, but it re-acts, and sometimes 
with violence, when it is told that it must accept, under 
tremendous pains and penalties, that which is declared to be 
as true. 

It requires from us also, such forms of character, such 
forms of action, as are in themselves distasteful to us ; against 
the requisition of which we fight, with a native and an 
instant impulse ; and while this is the astonishing character 
of the book it is seemingly most irregular in conatruction, 
shaped by no formula of art, conformed to no critical canon 
of taste or judgment, such as are now current in the world. 

It seems incredible, therefore, that such a book should 
hold its place, while the civilizations advance and change. 
We have, instead of the slender bark of the ancients, pursu- 
ing its slow course throug^h the waters of the narrow seas, 
and looking out anxiously for the Pharaohs at Alexandria, 
the mighty steamship, steering by the stars, conquering the 
oceans, treading its unobstructed way through storm and 
tempest toward distant coasts ; instead of the camel, we have 
the rail-train; instead of the pen of the scribe, the type, mul- 
tiplying copies of human thought a million-fold, as against 
the pen. Instead of the goat's-hair tent of the desert, we 
have the splendid and sumptuous palaces and cities of 
modern civilization; instead of the javelin and the bow, we 



THE BIBLE. 73 

have the modern artillery, with its thunderous and fatal 
power, almost rivalling the artillery of the heavens. 

How is it, then, that this book survives all changes in 
human civilization, and is as apt and powerful in its appeal 
to us as to those of any earlier time ? The wonder grows, 
when we remember that it widens always in its appeal with 
the expansion of civilization, and is already in more than 
two hundred languages. It grows still further, when we 
remember that the best and noblest of the race are those 
who love it most, and search most fondly and profoundly ; 
who stand as humble scholars before this book of the cen- 
turies and of the earth, and the wonder comes to its very 
climax when we remember that this oldest, largest, roughest, 
and most unworldly of books, is the source and spring of 
civilization everywhere ; before it, inventions multiply at its 
touch, commerce extends beneath its influence, churches 
rise, and spires ascend as songs toward the heavens ; it prints 
its story on blazoned windows, it carves its record in the 
delicate and enduring marbles ; art, invention, enterprise, 
liberal governments, human legislations, all come from this 
book. This is simply incredible, if it be a book of merely 
human authorship. Skepticism says that such a Bible has 
no business to be in the world, but here it is ! and we pause 
marvelling before its mysterious and astonishing wonders, 
until we recognize the fact that God is in it ; it is the Lord's 
doing ; and so it is marvellous in our eyes. — R. S. Stoirs. 



No true bard will ever contravene the Bible. Coming 
steadily" down from the past, like a ship, through all pertur- 
bations, all ebbs and flows, all time, it is to-day his art's 
chief reason for being. — Walt Whitman. 




74 THE BIBLE, 



THE CITADEL OF CHRISTIAN FAITH. 

'HE fortress at Gibraltar is reputed to be the 
world's strongest military fortification. Every 
^ available point bristles with artillery, the moun- 
tain is honey-combed with galleries and bomb- 
proofs. Batteries hew^n in the rock frown in every 
direction. For twelve hundred years this cannon- 
crowned rock has been the object of international envy. 
Around it from the days of the Saracens, the thunder of 
battle has roared. Africans, Arabs, Castilians, Moors and 
Englishmen have in turn been its masters. But around the 
Bible — the Citadel of Christian faith— the noise of conflict 
has rung more loudly and for a longer period. Yet it stands 
to-day in the possession of its Christian defenders. Celcus, 
Porphyry and Hierocles opened the long campaign with 
theii' mortars of Platonic learning. Behind them came on 
long ranks of pagan monarchs, heathen philosophers and 
military commanders ; and the friends of the God-protected 
stronghold trembled as it seemed for centuries to stand like 
the bush of Horeb invested with flame. Then the most exten- 
sive ecclesiastical hierarchy the world has known began sap- 
ping and mining around this asylum within which were 
sheltered the hopes of humanity. Invested by foes ^vearing 
eVery uniform of hate and badge of opposition, the little 
garrison held at bay century by century the great army of 
besiegers. Behind these and their civil allies came lines of 
atheists, deists, pantheists, materialists, rationalists and varied 
infidels, led by men like Holbach and Comte, Herbert 
and Bolingbroke, Hume and Gibbon^ Hobbes and Blount, 



T±lE BIBLE, 75 

Spinoza and Hegel, Cousin and Schelling, Eousseau and 
Condoroet, Voltaire and Paine, Kenan and Strauss, Emerson 
and Parker; and these forgetting their quarrels in a com- 
mon contest against the Sacred Oracles, were defeated in 
individual assaults and in combined onsets. Occasionally 
some misguided son of science has gone to the stars and into 
the bowels of earth for effective ammunition, and like proud 
Goliath challenged the hosts of Israel only to be utterly 
discomfited. Even ranks of traitors clad in Christian dress 
and carrying the flag of the cross have levelled their heaviest 
artillery at this divinely protected Malakoff. All arsenals 
of learning, political power and ecclesiastical hate have been 
emptied for this bombardment, lasting nearly two thousand 
years, while shot and shell, battering ram and lance, arrow 
and javelin, rock and firebrand have been hurled against 
the Bible. The map of the world has been repeatedly 
changed ; kingdoms and republics have flourished and 
fallen, and great arts and armies have been born and per- 
ished. Walk round this citadel to-day and examine its con- 
dition after the protracted siege. Its foundations were never 
so strong, not one of its sixty-six bulwarks has been im- 
paired. Its blocks stand to-day as they were laid by Moses, 
the prophets, the evangelists and the apostles. From its 
base, laid in Genesis at God's command by the greatest 
architect of Hebrew history, high up to the cornice of Reve- 
lation placed on the impregnable structure under Divine 
direction by John, as from its lofty watch tower he looked 
over the river and saw the New Jerusalem, this old Redan 
stands to-day as fresh as the everlasting hills. The long 
cannonade of lingual criticism, philosophical review, educa- 
tional prejudice, political position and carping ridicule have 
left this fortress as fair as some structure of Parian marble. 



76 THE BIBLE. 

Over it waves to-day the same blood-stained flag that floated 
when the Roman emperors rallied their armies for the 
early assaults. Surely it promises to withstand the attack 
as Mr. Ingersoll flings against its walls his torpedoes of ridi- 
cule. This Bible ! It has stood as impregnable amidst 
hostility and surrounding disaster as the fabled pillars of 
Seth. Crucial tests have not impaired a chapter or invali- 
dated a verse. The tears of silver-haired patriarchs con- 
tinue to bedew its pages. The widow amid her poverty still 
reads its precious promises to her fatherless children. The 
troubled heart and sorrow-bowed head find its divine cove- 
nants softer than the pillows of down on which wearied 
kings have rested their aching foreheads. The sick yet 
touch their spirit lips to the crystal current of this "river 
of the water of life." Its pledges of a coming resurrection 
keep the graves of loved ones green, and have made the 
cemetery magnetic to surviving friends. The dying turn 
their closing eyes to it as their only lamp through the "val- 
ley of the shadow of death," axid clasp it as their last treas- 
ure while their fingers stiffen in the final ordeal. Old Sun! 
twin brother of Time ! thou wilt cease to shine. Empress 
of the evening! thy form will disappear from the night- 
draped sky. Lamps of Ether ! ye will drop into the empti- 
ness of destined darkness. Old Bible ! thou wilt survive 
infidelity, outlive criticism, and stand immortal, indestructi- 
ble, imperishable. — S. V. Leech, D. D. 



Without the Scriptures men can never attain a high 
state of intelligence, virtue, security, liberty or happiness. 
The whole hope of human progress is suspended on the 
ever-growing influence of the Bible. — IF. S Seward. 



^^ 



TBE BIBLE. 77 

TEACHINGS OF THE BIBLE. 

AST thou ever heard 



^V%|(^Ivy Of such a book? the author, God himself; 

(^^^fkiUap The subject, God and man ; salvation, life 
5 And death — eternal life, eternal death — 

Dread words; whose meaning has no end, no bounds — 

Most wondrous book ! bright candle of the Lord ! 

Star of eternity ! the only star 

By which the bark of man could navigate 

The sea of life, and gain the coast of bliss 

Securely ; only star which rose on time, 

And, on its dark and troubled billows, still 

As generation, drifting swiftly by, 

Succeeded generation, threw a ray 

Of heaven's own light, and to the hills of God ! 

The everlasting hills, ])ointed the sinner's eye. 

By prophets, seers, and priests and sacred bards 

Evangelist, apostles men inspired. 

And by the Holy Ghost anointed, set 

Apart and consecrated to declare 

To earth the counsels of the Eternal One. 

This book, this holiest, this subllmcst book. 

Was sent — Heaven's will. Heaven's code of laws 

To man, this book contained ; defined the bounds entire 

Of vice and virtue, and of life and death ; 

And what was shadow, what was substance taught. 

Much it revealed ; important all ; the least 

With more than what else seemed of highest worth ; 

But this of plainest, most essential truth — 

That God is one, eternal, holy, just, 

Omni})otent, omniscient, infinite. 

Most wise, most good, most merciful and true. 

In all perfection most unchangeable : 



78 THE BIBLE. 

That man — that every man of every clime 

And hue, of every age, and every rank, 

Was bad — by nature and by practice bad ; 

In understanding blind, in will perverse, 

Tn heart corrupt ; in every thought and word, 

Imagination, passion, and desire. 

Most utterly depraved throughout, and ill, 

In sight of Heaven, though less in sight of man ; 

At enmity with God his Maker born. 

And by his very life an heir of death ; 

That man — that every man was, farther, most 

Unable to redeem himself, or pay 

One mite of his vast debt to God — nay, more, 

Was most reluctant and averse to be 

Redeemed, and sin's most voluntary slave ; 

That Jesus, Son of God, of Mary born 

In Bethlehem, and by Pilate crucified 

On Calvary for man thus fallen and lost, 

Died ; and by death, life and salvation bought. 

And perfect righteousness, for all who should 

In this great name believe ; that He, the third 

In the eternal essence, to the prayer 

Sincere should come, should come as soon as asked, 

Proceeding from the Father and the Son, 

To give faith and repentance, such as God 

Accepts — to open the intellectual eyes. 

Blinded by sin ; to bend the stubborn will. 

Perversely to the side of wrong inclined. 

To God and his commandments, just and good ; 

The wild rebellious passions to subdue. 

And bring them back to harmony with heaven ; 

To purify the conscience, and to lead 

The mind into all truth, and to adorn 

With every holy ornament of grace, 

And sanctify the whole renewed soul. 

Which henceforth might no more fall totally 



THE BIBLE. 79 

But persevere, though erring oft, amidst 

The mists of time, in piety to God, 

And sacred works of charity to men ; 

That he, who thus believed, and practised thus, 

Should have his sins forgiven, however vile; 

Should be sustained at midday, morn and even, 

By God's omnipotent, eternal grace, 

And in the evil hour of sore disease, 

Temptation, persecution, war, and death — 

For temporal death, although unstinged. 

Beneath the shadow of the Almighty's wings remained — 

Should sit unhurt, and at the judgment day 

Should share the resurrection of the just, • 

And reign with Christ in bliss forever more ; 

That all, however named, however great. 

Who would not thus believe, nor practise thus : 

But in their sins impenitent remained, 

Should in perpetual fear and terror live ; 

Shou-ld die unpardoned, unredeemed, unsaved, 

And at the hour of doom should be cast out 

To utter darkness in the night of hell. 

By mercy and by God abandoned, there 

To reap the harvest of eternal woe : 

This did that book declare in obvious phrase, 

In most sincere and honest words by God 

Himself selected and arranged ; so clear. 

So plain, so perfectly distinct, that none 

Who read with humble wish to understand. 

And asked the Spirit, given to all who asked, 

Could miss their meaning, blazed in heavenly light. 

This book — this holy book, on every line 

Marked with the seal of high divinity. 

On every leaf bedewed with drops of love 

Divine, and with the eternal heraldry 

And signature of God almighty stamped 

From first to last — this ray of sacred light, 



80 THE BIBLE. 

This lamp, from off the everlasting throne, 
Mercy took down and in the night of time 
Stood, casting on the dark her gracious love ; 
And ever more beseecliing men, with tears 
And earnest sighs, to read, believe, and live, 
And many to her voice gave ear, and read. 
Believed, obeyed ; and now as the Amen, 
True, Faithful Witness swore, with snowy robes 
And branchy palms surround the fount of life. 
And drink the streams of immortality. 
Forever happy, and forever young. — Robert Polloh 



WISDOM OF BELIEVING THE BIBLE. 

VvS-^^^W^RE you an unlearned man? There is more infor- 
mation contained in the first three chapters of 
Genesis, concerning the creation of all things — the 
original condition of man — his shameful fall — and 
the origin of all evil, than you will find in so short 
a compass, in any other book in the world. 

There is more solid information in the Bible than in 
any other book. There is that which you will find in no 
other book whatever, that which will " make you wise unto 
salvation, through faith in Christ Jesus." All learning is 
not knowledge ; there are those that are " ever learning, yet 
never able to come to the knowledge of the truth." 

When you take up such a work as Plomer's Iliad, and' 
particularly Pope's Homer, beautiful as it is, you do not 
know that the author speaks truth ; you read of the siege of 
Troy, but you do not know that these things were so ; but 
when you take up the Saviour's prediction of the siege of 
Jerusalem, and compare it with Josephus' history of that 



THE BIBLE. 81 

event, you can come at the knowledge of the truth in the 
case. When you read ^' Milton's Paradise Lost/' sublime 
and beautiful as it may be in poetry, you do not know but it 
may be false in fact; but when you read the sacred narra- 
tive of our Saviour's discourses and miracles, you may know 
that these things were so. All knowledge is not wisdom ; 
we may be very knowing, and at the same time very unwise ; 
but whoever will follow the maxims of the Old Testament, 
and the precepts of the new, cannot be unwise ; therefore 
there is wisdom in believing. 

Are 3^ou a learned man ? a linguist, an antiquarian, a his- 
torian, a philosopher, a poet, a statesman, a grammarian, a 
logician, a rhetorician, a traveller ? Here you may gratify 
your taste as a linguist, in comparing manuscripts, in notic- 
ing the structure, genius, and idiom of many languages, for 
the Bible exists in many. Here you may notice para- 
phrases, versions, and various readings, ad libitum, if not ad 
infinitum. Here you may indulge your speculations on the 
origin of nations, and of languages, and with the antiquarian 
travel through Rome and Greece into Egypt, and learn the 
origin of almost all the mythological fables of the ancients. 
Here, if you love to trace history to its fountains, you may 
go farther back than the days of Hesiod or of Homer, and 
obtain certain information of cities and of nations that have 
long since gone to decay. 

Here, if you are a philosopher, you may find entertain- 
ment in some parts, at least, of the writings of Moses, or of 
Job, or of David. What think you of that expression of 
Job's, " He hangeth the earth upon nothing," philosophically 
considered, and of that of the Psalmist, " He gathereth 
the waters of the sea together as a heap," in view of the 
convexity of the sea, and the modern theory of tides? Or 



g2 THE BIBLE. 

of those expressions of Solomon : " Or ever the silver cord 
be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be 
broken at the fountain, or the wheel be broken at the 
cistern." Most interpreters agree that Solomon in this 
beautiful allegory is speaking of the human system. How 
can the blood in the human body "ascend without reluc- 
tance and descend with precipitancy," as one observes, " con- 
trarv to the common laws of nature " and how could Solo- 
mon describe these things as he has done without some 
knowledge of the principles of modern science ? 

Here, if you are a poet, you may gather flowers as rich 
as ever grew on Mount Parnassus ; to be convinced of this, 
you need only read Bishop South on Isaiah, Dr. A. Clark's 
notes on the Psalms, and his sketch of the life and char- 
acter of David ; or " The Song of Moses Explained Accord- 
ing to the Eules of Rhetoric," by Rollin, in his second book 
of his method of studying the belles-lettres. '' Every one," 
says the elegant writer, " knows the energy with which the 
Scriptures make the impious man to vanish, who a moment 
before seemed like the cedar, to raise his proud head to the 
skies." Thus for example, "I have seen the wicked in great 
power, spreading himself like a green bay tree, yet he 
passed away, and lo, he was not; yea, I sought him, but 
he could not be found." He is so completely annihilated 
that the very place where he stood was destroyed. Racine 
gives a different translation which is thus Englished: 

" We saw the impious wretch adored on earth, 
And, hke the cedar^ hide his daring front, 
High in the heavens :* he seemed to rule at will 
The forked thunder, and to crush his captive. 
I only passed, and lo ! he was no more." 



THE BIBLE. 33 

Are you a statesman ? Look again at the laws of Moses, 
and the character of Joseph, Joshua, Samuel, and Daniel. 
We often hear of corruption in ministers of state ; here 
are instances of unsullied integrity. " Behold here I am," 
says Samuel : " witness against me before the Lord, and 
before this anointed, whose ox have I taken, or whose ass 
have I taken, or whom have I defrauded, whom have I 
oppressed, or of whose hand have I received any bribe to 
blind mine eyes therewith, and I will restore it unto you." 

Are you a grammarian, a logician, a rhetorician ? have you 
a passion for the recondite in philology? then with Gerand's 
Elements of Biblical Criticism in one hand, and a Polyglott 
Bible in the other, you maj^ find entertainment 'Hill life's"' 
sun shall set. " The simplicity and grandeur of Scripture 
style is above all praise. Notice the simplicity of the follow- 
ing passages : " He made the stars, also." Here the sacred 
historian speaks with indifference of the most astonishing 
display of omnipotence imaginable. Think of the creation 
of millions of suns, systems, worlds. The act was God's, the 
manner of relating it worthy of himself " Those who 
study the Scriptures attentively," says RoUin, "find that 
the beauty consists in the strength and greatness of the 
thoughts." Almost all writers on the sublime have noticed 
that passage in Genesis where Moses speaks of the creation 
of light. God said: "Let light be, and light was." Where 
was it a moment before? How could it spring from darkness, 
from nothing? The world that had hitherto been plunged 
in darkness seemed to issue a second time from nothing, 
and everything by being enlightened was beautified in an 
instant. All the colors that sprang from light embellished 
all nature. 

How magnificent is that description of the Psalmist: 



84 THE BIBLE. 

'\0\\ Lord, my God, thou art become exceeding glorious; 
thou art clothed with majesty and honor, thou deckest thy- 
self with light as it were with a garment." One would 
almost think that the God of ages had clothed himself with 
magnificence, and that, issuing from the secret of his pavil- 
ion, he displayed himself in light. But all this is but his 
outward clothing and as a mantle which hides him : " Thy 
majesty, oh God, is infinitely above the light that surrounds 
it. I ^K my eyes on thy garments, not being able to fix 
them on thyself" 

Are you a traveller or fond of reading books of travel? 
Here, then, you may visit Egypt in the time of the Pharaohs, 
when the art of embalming w^as in its glory; when the 
pyramids probably were raised ; certainly, when the first- 
born w^as slain by the angel of the Lord. From thence you 
may visit Palestine, Syria, Greece, Chaldea, Italy and Spain, 
and as you travel through these countries in the book of God 
you may notice the constant allusions to pL^ces and things 
and manners and customs peculiar to these countries which 
will convince you, perhaps, that the Bible is no forgery ; 
here you will read of " threshing-floors," but never of 
threshing-machines ; of " women grinding at the mill," but 
never of wind-mills, water-mills, or saw-mills ; here fre- 
quent mention is made of the '^ sword," the " bow," the 
"spear," the "helmet," the "girdle," the "sandal" and the 
" shield," but no mention is made of the pistol, the rifle, the 
cannon, the epaulette, or the boot ; here you will read of the 
"vine," the "fig-tree," the "pomegranate," the "olive" and 
the "cedar," but never of the phim, the peach, the pear, 
the maple and the walnut, and the reason is obvious — those 
things are peculiar to that country, these are peculiar to 
this. 



THE BIBLE, g5 

If the authors of the Bible, to say nothing of its inspira- 
tion, had lived in this country or in the north of Europe 
they would have made use of a language conformable to the 
climate and the customs of the country. Had the book of 
Isaiah been the " oflfspring of the genius of some gloomy 
monk," as Mr. Paine wickedly insinuates, then how shall we 
account for the beautiful imagery employed by that prophet 
in his most magnificent yet truly evangelical poems ? Notice 
particularly the thirty-fifth chapter, where j^ou can almost 
see 

" Old Jordan roll his yellow waves along 
With joy, like Lebanon in ancient day ;" 

where you can almost hear 

" Carmel and Sharon join the heavenly song, 

While joyous shepherds chant the solemn lay." 

If a " gloomy monk " of St. Bern<ard, for instance, had 
"conjured up" the book of the prophet Isaiah he would by 
a slip of the pen, probably, have written instead of Lebanon 
Mt. Blanc. 

" Whose head in wintry grandeur towers, 
And whitens with eternal sleep ; 
While summer, in a vale of flowers, 
Is sleeping rosy at his feet." 

And then the whole forgery would have been detected ; but 
now you may take Maundrell, Pocock, Shaw, Clarke, Bruce 
and Chateaubriand, or even Volney, in your hand and you 
shall find, so far as they have visited the holy land and the 
adjacent countries, that their descriptions substantially con- 
firm the Scripture account of those places. 

Had the writers of the New Testament been ignorant and 
as wild as some of their accusers, St. Paul, in sailing from 



86 THE BIBLE. 

Cesarea to Rome, would have been wrecked at Eziongeber 
instead of Miletus or Malta. A little attention to these 
things will help to correct sundry mistakes into which the 
enemies of Divine Revelation sometimes fall, and he that is 
wise will understand these things and make proper use of 
them. — George Coles, 



THE BIBLE OF INTEREST TO ALL. 

HE BIBLE interests the world; is of real, great, 
matchless, interest to all mankind. 

It interests all historically ; the origin of our 
race is here ; the primitive and proper condition of 
^^ -^ our race is here ; the cause of its present and im- 
W proper condition is here; the brotherhood of our race 
is herewith its early unity ; its subsequent division of 
tongues and tribes, and the progress of territorial discoveries, 
and of national migrations and settlements — in a word, the 
beginnings of all history are here ; and without the Bible 
there is nothing worthy the name of history. 

It interests all legally : the first principles of all law are 
here — those principles which are essential, universal, ever- 
lasting, and from w^hich,. therefore, there is and can be no 
appeal or escape. The master truth is here evident, that 
the constitution of the universe is a moral constitution ; and, 
of course, that all material elements and combinations, causes 
and consequences, are subordinate to spiritual agencies and 
destinies. The moral law, therefore, comes first ; claiming 
voluntary obedience to God. The natural law comes next, 
securing involuntary, mechanical, and disciplinary obedience 




THE BIBLE, 87 

to God, according to the moral exigencies of his higher ad- 
ministration. Then come civil hiw, and ecclesiastical law, 
as representative modifications and adaptations of the divine 
common law ; both of them being bound by this common 
law to the due observance of all personal, domestic, and 
social rights — leaving all men free, first of all, to fulfil their 
duties to their God and to their families, and then protecting 
and assisting them in all proper efforts to promote their 
social and public elevation and improvement. In a word, 
the beginnings of all law are likewise here ; and without the 
Bible there is nothing worthy the name of law. 

It interests all evangelically ; the consciousness of sin is 
universal, whether the law of God be in the heart alone, as 
among the heathen, or in the heart and book both, as 
among ourselves ; it is not more plain that the law exists, 
than it is that it has been broken, but, here is the atonement 
for sin ; an atonement made by the blood of the Son of God, 
ftcting as Mediator between God and men ; an atonement 
designed to make God and man one again ; an atonement 
meeting the utmost claims of the law, and proffering its 
benefits without exception of nation or respect of person to 
the whole world of transgressors. Here, moreover, is pro- 
vision for the regeneration of our nature — that being re- 
newed by the agency of the Holy Ghost we may recover 
ability in spirit at least to keep the law ; awakening to a 
life of holy love toward God and all our race ; here, in a 
word, the consciousness of sin may be exchanged for the 
consciousness of deliverance from sin ; all remorse for the 
past and fear for the future being succeeded by perfect 
peace, and the gladness and glory of heavenly expectation 
in all the world. "Without the Bible there is nothing which 
it would not be an utter disgrace to call salvation. 



gg THE BIBLE. 

It interests all prophetically. A better time to come luis 
been the presentiment of every age, the delusion or the war- 
ranted assurance of all generations. With the Bible before 
us we have no doubt of the happier theory. God has de- 
clared the restitution of all things by the m.outh of all his 
holy prophets since the world began. When the promise of a 
Saviour was first announced in the Garden of Eden the 
angel of hope stood by the side of the Almighty, and, as 
soon as she heard the joyful news, began to sing the song 
that ever since has charmed the waiting heavens and earth. 
Paradise withered, indeed, and the outer world soon smoked 
with the curse ; but when the last leaf fell from the tree of 
life, and the first fire flashed from the volcanic peak, Hope, 
unalarmed, prolonged her certain chant as sweetly and se- 
renely as ever. Then the deluge swept from pole to pole, 
but over the sea and over the storm the seraph sunned her- 
self in the smile of the hisrhest and now looks down throui2:h 
the clouds at the ark, and anon, looking up through the 
glory at the throne, she floated through the changeless sky 
with heart as calm and plumes as smooth as ever,, singing as 
soft a strain and as sure a triumph as in any moment of 
beauty and bliss before. True, w^hen Jesus died, she did, 
indeed, stand shuddering by the cross, hiding her face with 
her wings, and when he was buried she sat in the shadow 
of his sepulchre, weeping with sympathy if not with fear, 
and watching, wondering for the breaking of that strange 
repose. But, when he rose, instantly the morning star was 
startled and thrilled in its sphere w^ith the electric rapture 
of her song renewed, and still she sings, though many now, 
alas, mistake her strain. The good times coming are all her 
own, and infinitely better than myriads of the friends of 
progress have ever imagined. But the angel never forgets 



THE BIBLE. 89 

that Christ alone can bring them. The resurrection of 
Christ was the pledge of our own resurrection; the ascension 
of Christ was the symbol of our own ascension ; the return 
of Christ will be the signal of the new creation and the con- 
summate enthronement of immortal joy. Such is the 
prophecy of the Bible. But without the Bible there is 
nothing worthy the name of prophecy. 

So much for the point that the Bible deserves to be out 
before the world. It interests the world historically, legally, 
evangelically and prophetically. I would like to add philo- 
sophically, for the soul of philosophy is here ; I would like 
to add poetically, for the bloom of all poetry is here ; I 
would like to add divinely, for the unveiled splendor of the 
majesty and government of the Eternal Jehovah is here. 
Here, and here only, is an absolutely inexhaustible universe 
of reliable intelligence. Personally and socially, temporally 
and eternally interesting to every faculty and to every des- 
tiny of our race, these hints must suffice where the longest 
and richest discourse would still fall short of the fullness of 
the theme. — T. H. Stockton. 



THE BIBLE A MANY-SIDED BOOK. 

ECAUSE of the constant variety in the literary 
structure of the Bible it becomes a universal 
book ; since there is no tribe or nation that does 
not enjoy story, song, parable, eloquence ; that does 
not, therefore, welcome the Bible, as opening to it 
new realms of thought, presenting that thought in the 
most engaging and fascinating forms and giving the 
mind intellectual gratification while tending all the time to 




90 THE BIBLE. 

irradicate and renew the moral nature. There is almost no 
other Oriental book which is valued and sought in the 
Western world. But this is just as familiar to the Western 
mind, as congenial to it, as if it had been prepared in Europe. 
There is no other book read studiously in Europe, which is 
read with equal interest and gladness in the Society Islands, 
in India, China and among the barbarians of South Africa 
just emerging from their dense darkness. But the Bible 
goes to the African as to the European ; goes to the Islander 
of the Sea, to the Chinaman and the Hindoo, to the Indian 
and the Arab, as well as to the citizen trained by schools, 
expert in business, in the most civilized nations. There is, 
of course, a certain local color in it which makes the mis- 
sionary who reads it in the East and who interprets it into 
the Arabic ; which makes the traveller reading it in the 
East, among the localities where its writings first found their 
life and form, appreciate the beauty and the wonder of it 
the more. But it is, beyond all others, a universal book, 
and largely by reason of this amazing many-sidedness of its 
literary constitution. 

Then it is, also, a comprehensive and commanding book, 
as addressed to any individual student, because it appeals to 
each faculty of the mind, interests all and leaves none un- 
challenged. It appeals to men in all moods of their feeling. 
It appeals to them in all stages of this life, from childhood 
onward through maturity, until the extreme limit of age. 
It appeals to them thus not merely by reason of the sub- 
stance of the truth which it communicates, but also of this 
variety of means by which it conveys it — in song and story, 
in law and proverb, in parable, argument and nightly vision. 
Every faculty of mind is therefore addressed by it and is 
gratified by it. We are sometimes in trouble because certain 



THE BIBLE, 91 

parts or passages of the Bible are less interesting to us, at 
least in certain moods of feeling, than they have been be- 
fore ; are not so interesting to us now as they were when we 
were children, or have lost the celestial glow which was 
upon them when we read them with tears and with triumph 
in our grief. But the Bible is intended to furnish somethiijg 
for every mood, the most sorrowful and the most cheerful ; 
when the soul is sunken in grief and when it is rising in 
new-born ecstacy of strength and hope. It has parts for the 
little child and parts for the aged. It is the only universal 
book in the world, because it is the only one which has this 
marvellous completeness of constitution which the little 
child and the venerable grandparent will gladly sit down 
and read together; which is at home in the Sunday-school 
and equally at home in the highest university ; which the 
most disciplined mind can never exhaust, yet which the 
youngest and most immature can find full of attraction, in- 
struction, inspiration. This, by reason of the marvellous 
manifoldness of its literary structure, as well as by reason 
of the grandeur and the glory of that system of truth which 
is evermore contained within it. 

Observe, too, what an educating book it becomes, by 
reason of this astonishing variety in its constitution. It 
requires a man to match one part against another ; to read 
the poem in the light of the narrative; to interpret the 
argument by the light of that revelation of the Son of God 
which is given in the four matchless, divine biographies of 
him; to interpret the primitive precept, even under the 
radiance of that final vision of judgment which flashes its 
startling splendor on us from the great white throne; to 
interpret Christ's declaration of forgiveness by the miracles 
which he works, and the doctrine of sanctification by the 



92 THE BIBLE. 

Spirit by the crystaline sheen of the golden streets of the 
New Jerusalem. We are to analyze, and combine, and 
reconcile parts, to bring one into a close comparison with 
another, so that out of all we may derive the ultimate truth 
which God would give us in the Scripture. The flower, the 
oak, the forest and the stream, the continent and the ocean, 
are alike parts in this manifold whole ; and we cannot fully 
comprehend one without considering all. So it comes to be 
a book which educates the mind as no other can ; which 
tasks every faculty in it; which requires in its student a 
moral state sympathetic with his from whom it comes, and 
which requires our careful perusal, from end to end, in order 
that we may wholly understand it. — Dr. E. S. Storrs. 



THE BIBLE ADAPTED TO ALL 
CLASSES. 

F books, the oldest, truest and best, this book, for 
the rules it supplies for this life and the hopes it 
^J^^^^ presents of a better one, is adapted to all classes 
"^o"^ of society, and should be equally valued by all. 
, ^ ' This was well expressed by two very different, but 
^\ both impressive scenes. 

There, in yonder palace where a royal lady, about to 
leave our shores and rise in time to the position of a queen, 
receives a deputation. They have come to offer her in the 
name of the women of our country a parting marriage 
gift. It is no costly ornament, fashioned of gold and flash- 
ing with precious gems — diamonds from Indian mines, or 
pearls from the deep, such as the wealth and willingness of 
the donors could have purchased. A healthy sign of the 




THE BIBLE. 93 

age and a noble testimony to its religious character, tbe 
gift is a copy of the Holy Scriptures. This, as in long 
centuries hence it will be told, was the marriage gift it was 
thought worthy of a Christian nation to bestow, and worthy 
of a royal princess to receive. 

And there also, on yon stormy shore where, amid the 
wreck the night had wrought and the waves, still thunder- 
ing as they sullenly retire, had left on the beach, lies the 
naked form of a drowned sailor boy. He had stripped for 
one last, brave fight for life, and wears naught but a handker- 
chief bound round his cold breast. Insensible to pity, and 
unawed by the presence of death, those who sought the 
wreck, as vultures swoop down on their prey, rushed on the 
body and tore away the handkerchief; tore it open, certain 
that it held within its folds gold ; his little fortune ; some- 
thing very valuable for a man to say, I'll sink or swim with 
it. They were right, but it was not gold: it was the poor 
lad's Bible — also a parting gift, and the more precious that 
it was a mother's. — Thomas Guthrie, 



A MOTHER'S GIFT— THE BIBLE, 

^HJI^^EMEMBER, love, who gave thee this, 

When other days shall come; 
When she who had thine earliest kiss 

Sleeps in her narrow home. 
Remember, 'twas a mother gave 
The gift to one she'd die to save. 




Tliat mother sought a pledge of love, 
Tlie holiest for her son. 



94 ^ THE BIBLE. 

And from the gifts of God above 

She chose a goodly one ; 
She chose for her beloved boy 
The source of light, and life, and joy. 

She bade him keep the gift, that when 

The parting hour should come, 
They might have hope to meet again, 

In an eternal home. 
She said his faith in this would be 
Sweet incense to her memory. 

And should the scoffer, in his pride, 

Laugh that fond faith to scorn. 
And bid him cast the pledge aside. 

That he from youth had borne. 
She bade him pause, and ask his breast 
If she or he had loved him best. 

A parent's blessing on her son 

Goes with this holy thing: 
The love that would retain the one 

Must to the other cling, 
Remember ! 'tis no idle toy : 
A mother's gift! remember, boy. 

— Anonymous. 



There is not a boy on all the hills of New England^ not 
a girl born in the filthiest cellar which disgraces a capital in 
Europe, and cries to God against the barbarism of modern 
civilization ; not a boy or girl in all Christendom through ; 
but their lot is made better by that great book. 

— Theodore ParJcer. 




THE BIBLE. 95 



THREE BIBLES. 

^PHERE are three Bibles that are great powers in 
)i the formation of character. First and foremost 
comes the Family Bible. It transforms many a 
"*^ humble dwelling-place, many a cotter's abode, 
into a home. A castle may be a lodging-house, 
without being a home. A mansion may be an eating- 
house, a resting place, and not a home. A home is 
God's idea, an earthly approach to the heavenly reality — 
the Father's house. And to us it is incomplete without the 
Family Bible. I have known many a servant lass with her 
first earnings purchase this first piece of furniture for her 
new home to come. Others, more fortunate, have inherited 
the old Bible of their family. This is their heirloom ; no 
family jewels, but the old book with their humble pedigree, 
names well known in their religious circle — a good stock, 
honest, true and pious. And the first day in that new home 
it is placed on the table after the morning meal by the 
young wife. A chapter is read, and then the knee is bent; 
and if a prayer is not forthcoming, as is often the case at 
first, under the burden of the responsibility of starting a 
new home, the young husband breaks down possibly, and 
sends aloft one of those unspoken prayers on the wings of a 
sigh, and they understand all of that up yonder. And so a 
new spot of this earth, a new home, is won for him who.'^e 
right it is. And are not these the happiest homes in the 
land ? Would it not be well to multiply such homes, full 
of trust, cleanliness, purity, contentment, industry and 
sobriety in our land? Are not these homes an improve- 
ment upon the dens of brutality, drunkenness and wife- 



96 THE BIBLE. 

kicking that we often read of — so often that it makes us all 
sad ? Are not our efforts to multiply happy homes, such as 
I have described, in other lands worthy of all support? 
Why, the most cheerful people I have ever met live in these 
sneered at, pious homes ! And the parents, who love their 
children so dearly, covet for them no higher blessing than 
that they, too, may one day dwell in peace in a similar home. 
And is not this a divine stamp upon our religion — that it 
makes cheerful, happy homes? Is it not a fact that all the 
religious systems of man's making render it necessary for 
him to mortify, to pain and injure himself physically, to 
make himself miserable? As if he thought God envied 
man his happiness ! But this one exceptional religion goes 
forth everywhere with its glad tidings, inviting all, not to a 
prison, but to a feast; proclaiming not the laws of a tyrant, 
but a Father's way to happiness — a safe, sure way to fill the 
homes of the earth with cheerfulness, with happiness, by 
filling them with holiness. 

Then comes another Bible that plays a most important 
part in the formation of the character of a Christian people 
— the Sunday-school Teachers Bible — presented to him, as a 
rule, by his class, as a recognition of his faithfulness ; and 
it is wonderful how every class will find out and recognize 
true faithfulness. There , are hundreds of them through- 
out the world. Try to think of the influence of one 
Teacher's Bible. He has been in that class for forty years. 
Hundreds of young men have passed under the influence of 
his teaching ; many have gone early, cheered by its light in 
tne dark valley. Others are now fighting a noble, brave, 
faithful battle, scattered everywhere throughout the earth, 
but all under the spell of the faithful words spoken to them 
by their old teacher, who had nothing to gain but their 



THE BIBLE. 97 

good. Think of his work in one short life ; how he has 
moulded other lives, expecting no renown, no reward, not a 
penny^ but the " well done," of the Master, and the heavenly 
welcome home of the faithful servant. He leaves, however, 
a name remembered by hundreds, and when buried in that 
silent God's Acre, one of his old disciples, returning from a 
distant land, inquires for his grave, and stands over it, weep- 
ing as naturally as April showers fall. "And it is here he 
is laid." He bedews his resting place with the tears of 
thankfulness. " When that illness came, how I remember 
his words ; how they came back in the silence of my sick 
chamber, how they scattered my fears, and ever since how 
they have changed me ! I owe this humble teacher literally 
my salvation, and I bless God for his life." 

Next comes the Mother s Bible : it is placed in the box of 
every young man and maiden when they leave home, by a 
loving mother, who seems to say : " I cannot go with him — 
I cannot go with my boy, but may the God of this book — 
the God that went with Joseph to Egypt and Daniel to 
Babylon — may he watch over him ? " And there it is hid, 
to be found when the box is opened away from home. I 
have it now on my study table. I have often felt that I 
should like a larger Bible in my study ; but this one, with 
a reminder on the first page that it was a mother's wish that 
I should read it and believe it, has a charm about it, and, 
when opened, has its sweet and sad recollections that can 
never be regained by another Bible. Is it not a wonderful 
fact that the very first instructress of every one of us — a 
mother — every uncorrupted woman, is, by nature, susceptible 
of deep religious impressions ? Hardly- a young lad or a 
young lass leaves home in Wales but carries a Mother^s 
Bible, with a few words written in a trembling hand on its 



98 THE BIBLE, 

white page. It is hardly readable, but to the eye of a child 
the trembling of the hand speaks of the anxiety of the 
heart, when he left home that morning. The book may be 
neglected for years occasionally, and thrown aside, and hid 
in the bottom of the box, but wait a few years, until the 
mother is gone, and her voice comes back to him now like a 
cry from another world : " Read it for your mother s sake," 
and the handwriting seems to bring up that old home with 
its tender memories, to subdue, to melt the prodigal. 

— E. Herbert Evans. 



THE OLD FAMILY BIBLE. 

HOEVER has travelled among the Scottish hills 
and dales cannot have failed to observe the 
^^f^ff^ scrupulous fidelity of the inhabitants to the old 
I V^:^^ family Bible. A more honorable trait of char- 
acter than this cannot be found ; for all men, 
whether Christians or infidels, are prone to put reliance 
in those who make the Bible their companion, the well- 
thumbed pages of which show the confidence their owners 
repose in it. 

A few years ago there dwelt in Ayrshire an ancient 
couple possessed of this world's gear sufficient to keep them 
independent from want or woe, and a canny daughter to 
bless their gray hair and tottering steps. A gallant of a 
farmer became enamored of the daughter, and she, nothing 
loth, consented to be his. 

The match being every way worthy of her, the old folks 
gave their approval, and as they were desirous to see their 
child comfortably settled, the two were made one. In a 




THE BIBLE. 99 

few short years, the scythe of time cut down the old people, 
and they gave their bodies to the dust and their souls to the 
Creator. 

The young farmer, having heard much of the promised 
land beyond the sea, gathered together his property, and, 
selling such as was useless, packed up what was calculated 
to be of service to him at his new home. Some neighbors, 
having the same desire for adventure, sold off their homes 
and homesteads, and, with the young couple, set sail for 
America. 

Possessed of considerable property in the shape of money 
this company were not like the generality of emigrants, poor 
and friendless, but happy and full of hope of the future. 
The first thing done after the landing was the taking out of 
the old family heirloom, the Bible, and returning thanks 
and praise to Him who had guided the vessel to a safe 
haven. 

The farmer's object in coming to this country w^as to 
purchase a farm and follow his occupation : he therefore 
spent but little time in the city at which he arrived ; and as his 
fellow-passengers had previously determined on their desti- 
nation, he bid them farewell, and, with a light heart, turned 
his face toward the setting sun. Indiana, at this time, was 
fast becoming settled, and, having heard of its cheap and 
fertile lands, he determined on settling within its borders. 

He fixed on a farm on the banks of the Wabash, and 
having paid cash for one-half, gave a mortgage for the 
balance, payable in one year. Having stocked his farm, 
and rested from his labor, he patiently awaited the time 
when he might go forth to reap the harvest ; but, alas ! no 
ears of grain gladdened his heart or rewarded his toil. The 
fever of the country attacked him, and at the time when 



100 THE BIBLE. 

the fields are white with the fulness of the laborer's skill, 
death called him home, and left his disconsolate wife a 
widow^ and his only child an orphan. 

We leave this first sorrow and pass on to witness the strug- 
gles of the afiiicted widow^ a year afterward. The time 
having arrived when the mortgage was to be paid, she bor- 
rowed the money off a neighbor who had been very attentive 
to her husband and herself. Hard and patiently did she toil 
to repay the sum at the promised time ; but all would not 
do ; fortune frowned, and she gave way to her accumulated 
troubles. Disheartened and distracted, she relinquished her 
farm and stock for less than she owed her neighbor, who, not 
satisfied with that, put an execution on her furniture. 

On the Sabbath previous to the sale, she took courage and 
strengthening herself with the knowledge of having wronged 
no one, went to the temple of her heavenly Father, and 
with a heart filled with humanity and love, poured out her 
soul to him, " who turneth not away ; " and having com- 
muned side by side with her neighbor, returned to her 
desolate home. Here her fortitude had liked to have for- 
saken her, but seeing the old " family Bible," she reverently 
put it to her lips, and sought for consolation in its pages. 
Slowly she perused its holy and inspiring verses, and gathered 
hope from its never-failing promises. 

The day of sale having arrived, her few goods and chat- 
ties were, in due course, knocked ofi* to the highest bidder. 
Unmoved she saw pass from her possession article after 
article, without a murmur, till the constable held up the 
old family Bible. This was too much. Tears flowed and 
gave silent utterance to a breaking heart. She begged the 
constable to spare her this memento of her revered and 
departed parents; and the humane man of the law would 



THE BIBLE. |Q1 

willingly have given it to her, but her inexorable creditor 
declared everything should be sold, as he was determined to 
have all that was due to him. 

The book was, therefore, put up, and about being disposed 
of for a few shillings, when she suddenly snatched it, and 
declaring she would have some relic of those she loved, cut 
the slender thread that held the brown linen cover with the 
intention of retaining that. The cover fell into her hands, 
and with it two flat pieces of thin dirty paper. 

Surprised at the circumstance, she examined them, and 
what was her joy and delight to find each to be a bank- 
note, good for ^VQ hundred pounds, on the bank of England! 
On the bpxk of one, in her mother's handwriting, were the 
following words : '^ When sorrow overtakes you seek your 
Bible.''' And on the other, in her father's hand, '^Your 
Fathers ears are never deafT 

The sale was immediately stopped, and the family Bible 
given to its faithful owner. The furniture sold was readily 
offered to her by those who had purchased it, and she gladly 
took it back. Having paid off her relentless creditor to the 
uttermost farthing, and rented a small house, she placed the 
balance of her money in such a way as to receive interest 
enough to keep her comfortable, and is now able to enjoy 
the precepts of the old family Bible without fear or mo- 
lestation. — Anonymous. 



Study the Holy Scriptures, especially the New Testa- 
ment ; therein are contained the words of eternal life. It 
has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth with- 
out any mixture of error for its matter. - 

— John LocJce. 



102 



THE BIBLE. 




THE PICTURE BIBLE. 



HOU folio dusk aud olden, 

My friend in early days, 
When loving hands oft opened 

Thy secrets to my gaze. 
Oft o'er thy pictures bending, 

Delighted I would stand, 
My sports forgot while dreaming 

About the Orient land. 



Thou openest the portals 

Of distant zones to me ; 
In thee, as in a mirror. 

Their glittering stores I see. 
Thanks, for through thee are glimpses 

Of strange, far regions sent, 
Of camels, palms and deserts, 

The shepherd and his tent. 

More near to view thou bringest 

The hero and the sage, 
By gifted seers depicted 

Upon thy priceless page; 
The fair and bride-like maidens. 

As well their words portray. 
Of each a living semblance 

Thy figured leaves display. 



The patriarchal ages. 

What simple times were they I 
When men on every journey 

Met angels by the way. 



TEE BIBLE, 103 

Their wells and herds of cattle, 

How often have I seen, 
"While on thy pages gazing. 

With quiet thoughtful mien. 

Again thou seemest, as lying 

Upon the stool of yore, 
While I, intently musing, 

Upon thy pages pore. 
As if the old impressions. 

So oft with rapture viewed, 
In fresh and brilliant colors ^ 

Before me stood renewed. 

As if, more bright than ever, 

Again before me placed, 
I saw the quaint devices 

Around thy borders traced ; 
Branches and fruit combining, 

Round every picture wrought, 
Each to some picture suited, 

And all with meaning fraught. 

As if in days departed. 

My eager steps I bent. 
To ask my gentle mother 

What every picture meant ; . 
As if some song or story, 

I learned of each to tell. 
While beamingmildly on us. 

My father's glances fell. 

Oh, time now fled forever ! 

Thou seemest a tale gone by; 
The picture Bible's treasures. 

The bright believing eye, 



104 THE BIBLE, 



The glad delighted parents, 

The calm contented mien, 
The joy and mirth of boyhood, 

All, all, alas ! have been. 

— Ferdinand Freiligrath, 



THE LEADERSHIP OF THE BIBLE. 



HE word of God has exhibited the power of con- 
tinuous leadership. This is perhaps the se- 
^ verest, most exacting test to which it can be 
exposed ; none of the ethnic religions have sus- 
tained it with success. China has been stagnant 
for ages. India was essentially what it is to-day 2,500 
years ago; the power of its religious literature is ex- 
pended. Books are mortal ; the best of "them live their 
briefer or longer day and then perish. Galen was an 
authority in medicine for 1,300 years, but his works are 
now antiquarian rubbish. Our school-children have more 
knowledge of physics than can be found in Opus Majus of 
the great Roger Bacon. Lavoisier destroyed the chemistry of 
Bagdad, and Lavoisier himself has perished by the hand of 
his successors. The speculations of Plato and Aristotle, with 
all their wealth of intellect, are comparatively worthless. 
The immortal books, as we call them, seize upon and ex- 
pound the unprogressive side of humanity. There are un- 
progressive elements in our life, elements the same yester- 
day, to-day, and forever. Love, fear, hate, revenge — the 
whole group and array of the passions — are not different in 
the earliest and in the latest man. Homeric wrath before 




THE BIBLE. 105 

the walls of Troy was quite what wrath is in the streets of 
our own city. The literature portraying with a touch of 
genius qualities that all races possess in common — qualities 
that have the perpetuity of the spring, of the sunset, re- 
maining the same year by year without progression or 
decay — will live ; but the book which aspires to lead the 
growth of mankind from first to last, to pilot its indefinite 
expansion, to fling ofi* its outworn old and welcome its dawn- 
ing new, has attempted the most intractable enterprises 
known on earth. Even here we maintain the word has 
succeeded, and is succeeding. 

No one will claim that anything less than power of the 
amplest magnitude and of the happiest adaptation could 
prosper in this field. The tremendous mental force in the 
book seems to be fully attested by the vast intellectual 
energy, friendly and hostile, it has roused. Mind stimulates 
mind, thought provokes thought. There is in the cause a 
vitality equal to all the developments in the effect. A 
catalogue of the books called into existence by the Scrip- 
tures, in the line of direct defence or direct attack, would 
probably fill 5,000 quarto pages. 

This power of the word has left its mark in all the great 
departments of civilization. It has inspired the grandest 
creations of the brush — Raphael's Madonna in the Dresden 
Gallery, and the frescoes of Michael Angelo in the Sistine 
Chapel. It has inspired the noblest musical compositions, 
like Handel's Messiah, or Hayden's Creation, or Mendels- 
sohn's Elijah. It was the pioneer in giving form to our 
English prose literature, A pathetic interest clings to the 
story. 

On the last day of Baeda's life he gathered his pupils 
about him that his translation of John's Gospel might pro- 



106 THE BIBLE. 

ceed. As the old man continued to dictate, his increasing; 
weakness became noticeable. " There is still a chapter 
wanting," said Wilberch, the amanuensis, '^ and it is hard 
for thee to question thyself." " It is easily done/' replied 
Baeda, " take thy pen and write quickly." They wrote on 
until nightfall. " There is one sentence unwritten, dear 
master." " Write it quickly," answered the dying scholar. 
"It is now finished." "Thou sayest true; all is finished 
now." They carried him to his accustomed phice of 
prayer ; he sang the " Glory of God," and died. 

"It is to that scene," says Stopford Brooke, " that English 
prose looks back as its sacred source." The power, the 
creative impulse of the word in our literature, from Baeda 
to the present hour, can scarcely be overestimated. The 
late Henry Rogers critically examined the writings of some 
of its acknowledged masters to determine, if possible, their 
obligations to the Bible for felicities of thought and expres- 
sion. He remarks the fact that not less than three works 
have been written to trace its presence in Shakespeare. In 
Bacon's Essays " one is perpetually struck," he writes, " with 
the felicity with which passages of Scripture are introduced." 
He found a sinsrle contribution from this source "in the 

o 

matchless energy of Milton's diction." Of Carlyle's French 
Revolution he says, " In describing the scenes of his tre- 
mendous ' Triology of Tragedies,' fragments of Scripture 
language come unbidden to his pen as the best and most 
forcible he can employ." 

However an energy working on this gigantic scale, reach- 
ing forth into literature and the fine arts, of which we have 
given only hasty hints, m,ay astonish us, yet that energy 
which descends into the abyss of moral life, at home among 
the degradations of the past and among the higher civiliza- 



THE BIBLE. 107 

tions ot the present, swaying, tutoring, purifying, Christian- 
izing all alike, seems to me something still more wonderful. 
This is so familiar — this work of conversion in all the years 
and in all the races — that we miss its infinite significance. 
The Bible has existed, at least in fragments, for thirty cen- 
turies. It adjusted itself to the early period, brought out 
the possible good in that life, revealed what of God and of 
truth, of duty and of purity, could be grasped in that era. 
It has prosecuted the same work during all the lapse of the 
widening years. For the citizens of the three millenniums 
it has been light and hope, peace and salvation. And when 
to-day, with all our experience and progress, we raise in- 
quiries after the ideal life, even Renan is quick to answer: 
'^ Whatever may be the surprises of the future, Jesus will 
never be surpassed ! " 

It should not be forgotten that this amazing accumulation 
of power in the Word, with its unparalleled variety, flexi- 
bility and continuity, was secured under seemingly impos- 
sible conditions. It was sixteen hundred years in composi- 
tion. Forty different authors w^ere engaged upon it, repre- 
senting every variety of condition and culture — writing 
without concert, without design of com.posing a sacred book 
— flinging off occasional narratives, biographies, poems, or let- 
ters, that were designed only for local purposes. But when 
these fugitive, and in part anonymous, works are gathered 
into a volume they are found to be the world book. It was 
as if snatches of song, sung in every part of the globe, when 
brought together should weave themselves into the harmonies 
of some grand oratorio. We seem to be driven for an explana- 
tion of the power of the Word, by the sheer necessities of the 
case, to the theory of a divine inspiratioa, — L. W. Spring, 




108 THE BIBLE. 



INFLUENCE OF THE BIBLE ON 
MODERN AUTHORS. 

'ANTE, we have seen, has snatched fire from the 
Hebrew Sun, to light up his own deep sunk Cjclo- 
pean hearth. Tasso's great poem is "Jerusalem 
Delivered," and the stjle, as well as the subject, 
shows the influence of Scripture upon a feebler and 
more artificial spirit than Dante's. Spencer has been 
called by Southey a "high priest; " and his " Faery Queen," 
in its pure moral tone, nothing lessened by its childlike 
naivete and plain spoken descriptions, as well as in its gor- 
geous allegory, betrays the diligent student of the " Song," 
the Parables and the Prophets. Giles and Phineas Fletcher — 
the one in his " Temptation and Victory of Christ," and tl 3 
other in his " Purple Island " — are more deeply indebted to 
the Scriptures; their subjects are more distinctly sacred, and 
their piety more fervid than Spencer's ; their master, George 
Herbert, was called by excellence " holy," and his " Temple " 
proclaims him a poet " after God's own heart ; " it is cool, 
chaste and still, as the Temple of Jerusalem on the evening 
after the buyers and sellers were expelled. The genius, 
rugged and grand, of Dr. Donne, and that of Quarles, so 
quaint and whimsical, and that of Couley, so subtile and 
cultured, were all sanctified. Of Milton, what need we say ? 
His poems deserve, much more than Wisdom or Ecclesias- 
ticus, to be bound up between the two Testaments. Nor let 
us omit a sacred poem to which he was somewhat indebted, 
" The Weeks and Works of Du Bartas," a marvellous medley 
of childish weakness and manly strength, with more seed- 



THE BIBLE, 109 

poetry in it than any poem except "Festus" — the chaos of 
a hundred poetic worlds. Bunyan seems to have read 
scarcely a book but the Bible; when he quotes it, it is by 
chapters at a time, and he has nearly quoted it all. He 
seems to think and dream, as well as speak and write, in 
Scripture language. Scripture imagery serves him for fancy 
— for, with the most vivid of imaginations, fancy he has 
none — and Scripture words for eloquence, for though his in- 
vention be Shakespearian, his language is bare and bald. 
He alone could have counterfeited a continuation of the 
Bible. He was not the modern Isaiah nor Jeremiah, for he 
had no lofty eloquence ; and his pathos was wild and terrible 
rather than soft or womanly — the " man in the cage " is his 
saddest picture ; but he was the modern Ezekiel in his vehe- 
ment simplicity, his burning zeal, and the almost diseased 
objectiveness of his genius. Macaulay says there were in 
that age but two men of original genius — the one wrote the 
'' Paradise Lost," and the other the " Pilgrim's Progress ; " 
and he might have added that both seemed incarnations of 
the spirit of Hebrew poetry, and that the tinker had more 
of it than the elaborate poet. The age of Elisha and Amos 
seemed to have rolled round, when from among the basest 
of the people sprung up suddenly this brave man, like the 
figure of his own Pilgrim, and cried out to the Recorder 
of immortal names, " Set mine down," and the song was 
straightway raised over him — 

" Come in, come in, 
Eternal glory thou shalt win." 

Macaulay, however, here is wrong, and has sacrificed, as not 
infrequently is his manner, the truth on the sharp prong of 
an antithesis. There were in that age men of original genius 



110 THE BIBLE. 

besides Milton and Bunyan, and almost all of them had 
baptized it at " Siloa's brook, which flowed hard by the oracle 
of God." Cromwell's sword was a "right Jerusalem blade." 
Hobbes himself had studied Scripture, and borrov/ed from it 
the names of his books '' Behemoth " and " Leviathan." 
If a Goliath of Gath, he came at least from the borders of 
the land of promise. Jeremy Taylor soared and sang like 
Isaiah. John Scott copied the severe sententiousness and 
unshrinking moral anatomy of James, and had besides 
touches of sublimity, reminding you of the loftier of the 
minor prophets. Barrow reasoned as if he had sat, a younger 
disciple, at the feet of Paul's master, Gamaliel. John Howe 
rose to calm Platonic heights, less through the force of Plato's 
attraction than that of the beloved disciple. And Richard 
Baxter caught, carried into his pulpit, and sustained even at 
his solitary desk, the old fury of pure and passionate zeal 
for God, hatred at sin, and love to mankind, which shook 
the body of Jeremiah, and flamed around the head and 
beard, and shaggy raiment of the Baptist. 

In the century that succeeded — even in the " godless 
eighteenth century " — we find numerous traces of the power 
of the Bible poetry. The allegories, and all the other 
serious papers of Addison, are tinged with its spirit. He 
loves not so much its wilder and higher strains; he gets 
giddy on the top of Lebanon, the valley of dry bones he 
treads with timid steps, and his look cast up toward the 
'Herrible crystal," is rather of fright than of admiration. 
Well able to appreciate the " pleasures," he shrinks from 
those tingling " pains" of imagination. Nor has he much 
sympathy with that all absorbing earnestness which sur- 
rounded the prophets. But the lovelier, softer, simpler and 
more pensive parts of the Bible are very dear to the gentle 



THE BIBLE. HI 

"Spectator." The " Song" throws him into a dim and lan- 
guishing ecstasy. The stories of Joseph and of Ruth are 
the models of his exquisite simplicity, and the 8th and 104th 
Psalms of his quiet and timorous grandeur. We hear of 
Addison "hinting a fault, and hesitating dislike;" but, more 
truly, he hints a beauty, and stammers out love. He says 
himself the finest thing, and then blushes, as if detected in 
a crime. Or he praises an obvious and colossal merit in 
another, and if he has done it above his breath, he " starts 
at the sound himself has made." His encomiums are the 
evening whispers of lovers — low, sweet, and trembling. 
Thus timidly has he panegyrized the beauties of the Bible ; 
but his graceful imitations, and particularly his vision of 
Mirza (was he ashamed of it, too, and therefore left it a frag- 
ment?), so Scriptural in its spirit, style, and nameless, un- 
conscious charm, show how deeply they had engraved them- 
selves upon his heart. 

Even Pope, the most artificial of true poets, has found 
" his own " in Scripture poetry. Isaiah^s dark, billowy forests 
have little beauty in his eye ; but he has collected the flowers 
which grow beneath, and woven them into that lovely gar-;^ 
land, the "Messiah." In his hand. Homer the sublime be- 
comes Homer the brilliant, and Isaiah the majestic becomes 
Isaiah the soft and elegant. But, as Warton remarks, Pope's 
" Messiah " owes its superiority to Yirgil's " Pollis " entirely 
to the Hebrew poets. Young has borrowed little from them, 
or from any one else ] he is the most English original poet 
of the eighteenth century ; his poetry comes from a fierce 
fissure in his own heart; still, the torch by which he lights 
himself throu2;h the "Nio;ht" of his "Thougrhts" has been 
kindled at the New Testament ; and his " Last Day," and his 
** Paraphrase on Job," are additional proofs of the ascend- 



112 THE BIBLE. 

ency of the Hebrew genius over his own. Thomson's Hymn 
is avowedly in imitation of the later Psalms ; and his mind, 
in its sluixffish masrnificence and lavish ornaments, is dis- 

CO O / 

tinctly Oriental. Every page of the '' Seasons " shows an 
imagination early influenced by the breadth, fervor, and 
magniloquence of prophetic song. Johnson, too, in his "Ras- 
selas," '' Rambler" and " Idler," is often highly Oriental, and 
has caught, if not the inmost spirit, at least the outer roll 
and volume of the style of the prophets. Burke, in his 
" Regicide Peace," approaches them far more closely, and 
exhibits their spirit as well as style, their fiery earnestness, 
their abruptness, their impatience, their profusion of meta- 
phor, their '' doing well to be angry, even unto death," and 
the contortions by which they were delivered of their mes- 
sage, as of a demon. How he snatches up their words, like 
the fallen thunderbolts of the Titan war, to heave them at 
his and their foes ! No marvel that the cold-blooded ei"h- 
teentli century thought him mad. Burns admired his Bible 
better than he ever cared to acknowledge, and during his 
last illness, at the Brow, was often seen with it in his hands. 
Some of the finest passages in both his prose and verse are 
colored by Scripture, and leave on us the impression that, 
had he looked at it more through his own naked eagle-ej^e, 
and less through the false media of systems and commen- 
taries and critics, he had felt it to be the most humane, the 
most liberal, the least aristocratic, the most loving, as well 
as the sublimest and the one divine book in the world. As 
it was, that dislike to it natural to all who disobey its moral 
precepts, was aggravated in him by the wretchedly cold 
critical circles among whom he fell, who in their hearts pre- 
ferred Racine's "Athalie" to the Lamentations, and "Doug- 
las" to Job. Hence he praises Scripture with something 



THE BIBLE, 113 

like misgiving, and speaks of the pomjoous language of the 
Hebrew bards, an epithet which he means partly in praise, 
but partly also in blame, and applies to the expression, as 
simple as it is sublime, " Who walketh on the wings of the 
wind." 

Cowper, the most timid of men, was, so far as moral 
courage went, the most daring of poets. He was an oracle, 
hid not in an oak, but in an aspen. His courage, indeed, 
sometimes seems the courage of despair. Hopeless of heaven, 
he fears nothing on earth. " How can I fear," says Prome- 
theus, " who am never to die ? " How can I fear, says poor, 
unhappy Cowper, who shall never be saved ? And in noth- 
ing do we see this boldness more exemplified than in his 
" Bibliolatry." Grant that Bibliolatry it was ; it was the 
extreme of an infinitely worse extreme. In an age when 
religion was derided, when to quote the Bible was counted 
eccentric folly, when Lowth was writing books to prove the 
prophets " elegants," a nervous hypochondriac ventured to 
prefer them by infinitude to all other writers, defended their 
every letter, drank into their sternest spirit, and poured out 
strains which, if not in loftiness or richness, yet in truth, 
energy, earnestness and solemn pathos, seem omitted or mis- 
laid "burdens of the Lord." Blessings on this noble "Cast- 
away," rising momentarily o'er the moonlit surge, which he 
dreamed ready to be his grave, and shouting at once words 
of praise to that luminary which was never to rescue him, 
and words of warning to those approaching the same fearful 
waters. 

In the nineteenth century all our great British authors 
have more or less imbibed the fire from the Hebrew fountains. 
There had been, in the meantime, a reaction in the favor of 
them, as well as of other things " old." For fifty years the 



114 THE BIBLE. 

Bible, like its author, had been exposed on a cross to public 
ignominy; gigantic apes, like Voltaire, chattering at it; 
men of genius turned, by some Circean spell, into swine, like 
Mirabeau and Paine, casting filth against it ; demoniacs, 
whom it had half rescued and half inspired, like Rousseau, 
making mouths in its face till, as darkness blotted out the 
heaven above and an earthquake shook Europe around, and 
all things seemed rushing into ruin, men began to feel, as they 
did on Calvary, that this was all for Chrisfs sake ; and they 
trembled ; and what their brethren there could not or did 
not — they stopped ere it was too late. The hierophants of the 
sacrilege, indeed, were dead or hopelessly hardened, but their 
followers paused in time, and the mind of the civilized world 
was shaken back into an attitude of respect, if not of belief 
in the Book of Jesus. 

This reaction was for a season complete. No poetry, no 
fiction, no belles-lettres, no philosophy was borne with unless 
it professed homage to Christianity. And even after, through 
the influence of the "Edinburgh Review" and other causes, 
there was a partial revival of skeptical spirit, it never ven- 
tured on such daring excesses again. It bowed before the 
Bible, although it was sometimes with the bow of a polite 
assassin, who had studied murder and manner both in the 
south. 

Nay, more, Scripture poetry began to be used as a model 
more extensively than ever heretofore, alike by those who 
believed and those who disbelieved its Supreme authority. 
Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey we name first, because 
they never lost faith in it as a word, or admiration of it as a 
poem, and hence its language and its element seem more 
natural to them than to others. Campbell was attracted to 
it originally by his exquisite poetical taste. He came forth 



THE BIBLE. II5 

to see the "Rainbow," like some of the world's '^gray fathers/' 
because it was beautiful ; but ultimately, we rejoice to know, 
he felt it to be the " rainbow of the covenant." He grew 
up to the measure and the stature of his own poetry. Moore, 
like Pope, has been fascinated by its flowers; and we find 
him now imitating the airy gorgeousness of the " Song of 
Songs," and now the diamond-pointed keenness of the Book 
of Ecclesiastes. Scott, as a writer, knew the force of 
Scripture diction ; as a man, the hold of Scripture truth 
upon the Scottish heart ; as a poet, the unique inspiration 
which flowed from the Rock of Ages ; and has, in his works, 
made a masterly use of all this varied knowledge. Rebecca 
might have been the sister of Solomon's spouse. Her prose 
speeches rise as the sound of cymbals, and her ^*'Hymn" is 
immortal as a psalm of David. David Deans is only a little 
lower than the patriarchs, and time would fail us to enu- 
merate the passages in his better tales which, approaching near 
the line of high excellence, are carried beyond it by the dex- 
terous and sudden use of " thoughts that breathe," or "words 
that burn," from the Book of God. Byron, Godwin, Shelley, 
and Hazlitt, even, are deeply indebted to the Bible. Byron, 
in painting "dark bosoms," has often availed himself of the 
language of that book, which is a discerner of the thoughts 
and intents of the heart. Many of his finest poems are just 
expansions of that strong line he has borrowed from it — 

" The worm that cannot sleep, and never dies." 

His "Hebrew Melodies" have sucked out their sweetness 
from the Psalms; and "Cain," his noblest production, em- 
ploys against God the power it has derived from his Book. 
Godwin was originally a preacher, and his high didactic 
tone, his measured and solemn march, as well as many im- 



11(J THE BIBLE. 

ages and many quotations, especially in "St. Leon" and 
" Mandeville/' show that the influence of his early studies 
was permanent. When Shelley was drowned, it was rumored 
that he had a copy of the Bible next his heart ; " and," says 
Byron," it would have been no wonder, for he was a great 
admirer of it as a composition." The rumor was not literally 
correct, but was so mythically. It is clear to us that Shelley 
was far advanced on his way to Christianity ere he died, and 
was learning not only to love the Bible as a composition, but 
to appreciate its unearthly principles — that disinterested 
heroism especially which characterizes Christ and his Apos- 
tles. Indeed he was constituted rather to sympathize with 
certain parts of its morale, than with the simple and terse 
style of its writing. It was the more mysterious and im- 
aginative portion of it which he seems principally to have 
admired, and which excited the rash emulation of his genius, 
when he projected a variation of " Job." Hazlitt's allusions 
to Scripture are incessant, and are to us the "most interesting 
passages in his works. He was a clergyman's son, and in 
youth the Bible had planted stings in his bosom which none 
of his after errors, in thought or life, were able to pluck out. 
"Heaven lay about him in his infancy," and his comparison 
of the Bible with Homer, and his picture of the effects of 
its translation into English, show that the earnest though 
erring man never altogether saw its glory. 

"Die away, 
And fade into the liglit of common day." 

This is one of the features in Hazlitt's writings which 
exalt them above Lord Jeffrey's. Scotchman though he 
was, we do not recollect one eloquent or sincere-seeming 
sentence from his pen about the beauties of ^he Bible. 



THE BIBLE. 117 

Such writers as Sheridan, Rogers, Alison, Dugal Stewart, 
Lord Erskine, William Tennant, Mrs. Hemans, and a 
hundred others are suffocated in flowers ; but not a word, 
during all his long career, from the autocrat of criticism 
about Moses, Isaiah, Job, or John. To have praised their 
poetry might have seemed to sanction their higher preten- 
sions, and might, too, have reflected indirect credit upon 
that school of fervid poets who were sittting at the feet of 
Jewish men, as well as of Cumberland Mountains. Need 
we name, finally, Chalmers and Irving — those combinations 
of the prophet of the old and the preacher of the new 
economy ? 

Our living writers have, in general, shown a sympathy 
w^ith the Hebrew genius. We speak not merely of clergy- 
men, whose verdict might by some be called interested, and 
whose enthusiasm might unjustly be thought put on with 
their cloaks. And yet we must refer to Millman's " Fall 
of Jerusalem," and to Croley's magnificent " Salathiel." 
Keble, too, and French, Kingsley, William Anderson, are 
a few out of many names of men who, while preaching the 
Bible doctrine, have not forgotten its literary, glories, as 
subjects of earnest imitation and praise. But the Levites 
outnumber and outshine the priests in their service to the 
bards of the Bible. Isaac Taylor's gorgeous figures are 
elaborately copied from those of Scripture, although they 
sometimes, in comparison with them, remind you of that 
root of which Milton speaks — 

"The leaf was darkish, and had prickles in it, 
But in another country, as he said, 
Bore a bright golden flower, but not in this soiV* 

The eastern spirit is in them ; they want only the eastern 
day. Sir James Stephen has less both of the spirit and the 



118 THE BIBLE, 

genuine color, ardent as his love of the Hebrew iw. 
Macaulay quotes Scripture, as Burdett, in Parliament, was 
wont to quote Shakspeare — always with triumphant rhetor- 
ical effect, and seems once, at least, to have really loved its 
literature. Professor Wilson approaches more closely than 
any modern since Burke, to that wild prophetic movement 
of style and manner which the bards of Israel exhibit — nay, 
more nearly than even Burke, since, with Wilson, it is a 
perpetual afflatus : he is like the he-goat in Daniel, who 
came from the West, and touched not the ground ; his " Tale 
of Expiation," for instance, is a current of fire. Thomas 
Carlyle concentrates a fury, enhanced by the same literary 
influences, into deeper, straiter, more molten and terrible 
torrents. Thomas Aird has caught the graver, calmer, and 
more epic character of the Historical Books, especially in his 
" Nebuchadnezzar," which none but one deep in Daniel could 
have written. From another poem of his, entitled " Hero- 
dion and Azala," we quote two etchings of prophets : 

"Winged with prophetic ecstacies, behold 
The Son of Amos, beautifully bold, 
Borne like the scythed wing of the eagle proud, 
That shears the winds, and climbs the storied cloud 
Aloft sublime ! And through the crystalline, 
Glories upon his lighted head doth shine. 



Behold ! behold, uplifted through the air, 

The swift Ezekiel, by his lock of hair ! 

Near burned the Appearance, undefinedly dread, 

Whose hand put forth, upraised him by the head. 

Within its fierce reflection, cast abroad. 

The Prophet's forehead like a furnace glowed. 

From terror half, half from his vehement mind, 

His lurid hair impetuous streamed behind." 

From a hint or two in Scripture, he has built up bis vision 
of hell, in the " Devil's Dream upon Mount Acksbeck," a 



THE BIBLE. 119 

vision mysterious, fiery, and yet distinct, definite and fixed, 
as a frosted minster shining in the moonlight. But in his 
" Demoniac," he absolutely pierces into the past world of 
Palestine, and brings it up with all its throbbing life and 
thaumaturgic energies, its earth quaking below the footsteps, 
and its sky darkening above the death of the Son of God. 

Of the rising poets of the day " two will we mention dearer 
than the rest ;" dearer, too, in part, because they have sought 
their inspiration at its deepest source — Bailey, of " Festus," 
and Yendys, of " The Roman." This is not the place to 
dilate on their poetical merits. We point to them now, be- 
cause, in an age when so many young men and young poets 
are forsaking belief in the oracular and divine inspiration 
of the Bible, they have rallied around the old shrine, have 
expressed their trust in that old and blessed hope of the 
Gospel, and may be hailed as morning stars, prognosticating 
the rising of a new " day of the Lord." May their light 
already brilliant and far seen, shine " more and more " not 
only unto its own, but into the world's " perfect day." 

— George Gilfillan, 

TEST THE INFLUENCE OF 
SCRIPTURE. 

N order to try to form some conception of the 
influence of the Scriptures upon the minds of the 

f_ millions who have read them, let our readers ask 
each himself the question. What have I gained 
vv>- from their perusal ? and if he has read them for 
himself, and with an ordinary degree of intelligence, 
there must arise before his memory a "great multitude 
which no man can number," of lofty conceptions of God — 




120 THE BIBLE. 

of glimpses into human nature — of thoughts •' lying too deep 
for tears ; " of pictures, still or stormy, passing from that 
age to the canvas of imagination to remain forever; of 
emotions, causing the heart to vibrate with a strange joy, 
"which one may recognize in more exalted stages of his 
being; " of inspiration, raising for a season the reader to the 
level of his author — and of perpetual whispered impressions, 
^' this is the highest thought and language I ever encountered: 
I am standing on the pinnacle of literature." And then, 
besides, he will remember how often he returned to this 
volume, and found the charm remaining, and the fire still 
burning, and the fountain of thought and feeling (thought 
suggestive, feeling creative) still flowing — how every sen- 
tence was found a text, and how many texts resembled^ deep 
and deepening eyes: "orb within orb, deeper than sleep or 
death "—^how each new perusal showed firmaments, rising in 
the book, as in the night sky, till at last he fell on his knees, 
and forgetting to read, began to wonder and adore; how, 
after this trance was over, he took up the book again, and 
found that it was not only a telescope to show him things 
above, but also a microscope to show him things below and a 
mirror to reflect his own heart, and a magic grace to bring 
the future near, and how he was compelled to exclaim : 
" How dreadful is this book ; it is none other than the Book 
of God; it is the gate of heaven;" multiply this, the ex- 
perience of one, by an unknown number of millions, and 
you have the answer to the question as to the direct intel- 
lectual influence of the Scriptures upon those who have 
really read them. — George Gilfillan. 

I KNOW the Bible is inspired, because it finds me at greater 
depth of my being than any other book. — Coleridge, 




OUT OF DARKNESS INTO LIGHT. 



The wages of sin is death ; but the gift of God 
is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. 
Rom. 6 : 23. 




THE BIBLE, 121 

THE BIBLE IN THE SCHOOL AND 
COLLEGE. 

"^^"^''^^ROM all that has been said in favor of the Bible, 
'y as a classic, and as a book adapted to childhood 
;^ and youth, it follows as a legitimate inference 
of great practical importance that it ought, inva- 
riably, to form a part of the regular course of 
instruction in all our schools and colleges. In every 
system of classical, collegiate education it ought to be 
studied in its original tongues, just as our youth study the 
Greek and Latin authors. We see no reason why, as models 
of beauty, or as exercises of mental culture, the language 
and literature of Rome or of Athens should be preferred to 
that of Jerusalem. On the single ground of taste and 
genius, we believe that Moses and the Prophets, in their 
venerable Hebrew, are fully equal to Homer and Virgil, 
Herodotus and Livy. And, accordingly, an acquaintance 
with them in the original, ought to be regarded as an essen- 
tial part of a liberal, accomplished, collegiate education. 

But the Bible has much wider claims than these. Few, 
comparatively, can ever study it in its original tongues. 
Every man, every child at school may study it in English. 
And it is chiefly as an English classic, the best and most im- 
portant in our language, that we advocate its claims. No 
school ought to be found without the Bible. No course of 
education ought to be considered complete without it. No 
individual ought to be regarded as adequately educated 
without a knowledge of it. If there is any one book which 
deserves to be held as indispensable in every school, and in 
every course of education, it is the Bible. As an English 



122 THE BIBLE. 

classic, and a text-book of daily instruction, it ought to hold 
the same foremost place in all our schools which we know a 
part of it did hold as a Hebrew classic, and that by Divine 
commandment, in all the schools of the Jews for thousands 
of years; and which, indeed, it does still hold amongst the 
remnants of the chosen people throughout the world. 

It is in no spirit of dogmatism that we set up this claim 
for the Bible as a book of education at school. Aro'ument 
could be given, if any argument were needed except the bare 
statement of the case. Does it require any argument to 
show that the book which has caused all our learning, as 
well as our religion, to differ from that of the Mohammedans, 
the ancient Pagans, and the modern heathen nations, ought 
to be read in our schools ? that the book which tells us all 
we know with certainty about God and a future state, and 
gives us the highest sanctions we have for our morality, 
our laws, our institutions of marriage, the family and the 
state, ought to be read and studied at school? Surely, if ar- 
gument is to be brought, it would requite much argument to 
show that such a book ought not to be studied there. If an- 
cient history ought to be studied at school, then ought the 
Bible to be studied, as containing the most ancient, most im- 
portant, and most interesting history in the world. If the 
lives of illustrious men ought to be read, then ought this 
book to be read, with its biography of illustrious names ex- 
tending from Adam to Jesus Christ. If our youth may read 
at" school the great masters of eloquence and poesy, then 
may they read the Bible there, as containing the sublimest 
strains of the one and the most finished specimens of the 
other which our race has ever produced. If the elements 
of all moral and mental science, the principles of virtue and 
political wisdom may be taught at school, then may the 



THE BIBLE, 123 

Bible be taught, for it is the fountain whence all these have 
flowed. If religion itself ought to be taught at school as a 
legitimate part, and by far the most important part of all 
education, then ought the Bible to be taught, as being the 
book of our common Christianity, the only true and Divine 
revelation in the world. 

But, independently of this last consideration, our plea for 
the Bible as a school-book still stands good. You tell us you 
do not receive the Bible as the book of your religion ; or, 
you do not wish your child to learn Christianity at school ; 
or, that this is a part of instruction which you reserve for 
yourself. Well, be it so. And what then ? Our claim for 
the Bible as a school-book is still untouched. If you deny 
the inspiration of God, you cannot deny the inspiration of 
genius which breathes forth on every page. If you choose 
to ignore all its evidences as a Divine revelation, you cannot 
ignore its history, and biography, and morality, and learning, 
its eloquence and poetry, without at the same time forfeiting 
your own claim to be a man of taste, capable of appreciating 
the sublime and beautiful. If unwillin"; to have the relisrion 
of the Bible taught at school, what objection can you have 
to its learning and morality ? You cannot wish to exclude 
from our schools the most effective and beneficial history, 
biography, literature and philosophy which the world has 
ever produced. 

If it could be proved, by an absolute demonstration, that 
' the religion of the Bible is a cunningly devised fable, so that 
Christianity should henceforth take its place with the my- 
thology of Greece and Rome as an exploded system, still it 
would remain true as a historical fact, and, indeed, the most 
remarkable fact on that assumption in the world's history, 
that this book has been more widely known and received by 



124 THE BIBLE. 

the nations of the earth, has exerted a more beneficial and 
enduring influence upon them than any other book, whether 
of facts or of mythologies. And, therefore, both for what it 
contains itself and for what it has done in the world, even 
as a book of mythology, it would be entitled to take rank, in 
our schools and colleges, above Homer or Hesiod, Virgil or 
Ovid. True or false, then, inspired or uninspired. Divine or 
human, the Bible deserves to be studied at school, so long as 
anything is studied ; so long as men have any interest in 
knowing, and in causing their children to know, what has 
been said and done in this world of ours in past ages. And 
we must be permitted here to say, that the child in this 
Christian land who is permitted to go through all the elegant, 
fashionable schools of learning and complete his education 
without even a reading of the Bible, is chargeable with a 
degree of ignorance which, if the book were only human, 
would be a disgrace to him, and which, if it be Divine, is 
both a disgrace and an incalculable injury." 

— Le Roy J. Halsey, D. D. 



THE BIBLE THE BEST CLASSIC. 

;0 the parent I would say, your offspring are the 
children of God ; on you they depend for educa- 
j, tion ; God has commanded you to train them 
betimes to know and serve, to love and enjoy 
him ; the paths of business are equally the paths 
of temptation and duty ; religion belongs to every 
thought, and word, and deed ; as, then, the Bible is the 
only standard of duty, why do you not interweave it with 
the whole scheme of secular education ? 




THE BIBLE. 125 

To the instructor, I would say, you stand in the place of 
parent and guardian ; their duties are unquestionably yours ; 
to you is transferred not only the obligation to teach, but 
more especially the selection of appropriate books and the 
regulation of the order and proportion of studies. What 
parent or guardian has ever interfered with your plans? 
how entirely, and with what a cordial confidence, have they 
appointed you to think, to consult, to decide, to act for them ? 
why, then, have you excluded the Bible of those very 
parents and guardians from the whole scheme for the educa- 
tion of their children and wards ? 

To the patriot, I would say, can you doubt that to the 
Bible your country owes not only her religious liberty and 
her entire moral condition, but to a great extent her civil and 
political rights, her science, literature and arts ? The Bible 
is emphatically the book of truth and knowledge, of freedom 
and happiness to your country. Children you regard as 
public property ; and you know that they will honor and 
serve their country best, the more they are instructed in the 
Scriptures, and imbued with their spirit. Why, then, do 
you withhold the full benefit of those sacred oracles, by thus 
proscribing them in every scheme of education ? 

To the Christian, I would say, you admit the Divinity of 
the Scriptures, their absolute authority, and inestimable 
worth ; you concede that they are the common property of 
all; that even children may profit by them, since they are 
so simple and plain; that the wayfaring man, though a fool, 
shall not err therein ; why, then, do you not give them this 
lamp of life, as well as the lamp of knowledge to guide them 
daily, with harmonious beai^is, in their preparation for the 
inseparable duties and business of life ? 

To the scholar, I would say, we offer you a more ancient, 




126 ^^^' BIBLE. 

venerable, noble classic than is to be found in the whole 
compass of Grecian and Roman literature. — OrimTce. 



UNDERSTANDING THE BIBLE. 

LADY came to me in the inquiry room and said : 
" There are so many things in the Bible I cannot 
understand." No doubt about that; God says 
the carnal man cannot understand spiritual things^ 
and the Bible is a spiritual book. How can the unre- 
generate heart understand the Bible ? Well, you say, 
if it is a sealed book, how am I going to be saved? 
well, when God put salvation before the world, he put that 
very plain. 

The Word of God may be darkened to the natural man, 
but the way of salvation is written so plain that the little 
child of six years old can understand it if "she will. Take 
this passage, and see if you do not understand it : " The 
Spirit and the Bride say. Come ; And let him that heareth 
say. Come; And let him that is athirst, Come." Are not 
many of you thirsty ? God says, Come. "And whosoever 
will, let him take the water of life freely." 

Then you know what it is to take a gift? God puts 
salvation before you as a gift : " He came unto his own and 
his own received him not; but as many as received him, 
to them gave he power to become the sons of God." You 
can understand that ? " Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, 
and thou shalt be saved." You know what it is to believe ? 
At any rate you know what it is to trust, to commit your 
soul to the Lord Jesus Christ — that is all. There are dark 
and mysterious things in the Bible now, but when you begin 



THE BIBLE. 127 

to trust Christ, your eyes will be opened, and the Bible will 
be a new Book to you. Many things that are dark and 
mysterious to-day, to-morrow will have a new beauty. It 
will become the Book of books to you. To-day Christ may 
be a root out of a dry ground, without form or comeliness ; 
but he will become to you the chiefest among ten thousand, 
the altogether lovely, the bright and the morning star ; if 
you take him as your Saviour, then you will understand the 
Bible. 

No book in the world has been so misjudged as the Bible. 
Men judge it without reading it. Or perhaps they read a 
bit here and a bit there, and then close it, saying : " It is so 
dark and mysterious ! " You take a book now-a-days and 
read it : " Well," you say, " I have only read it through once, 
not very carefully, and I should not like to give an opinion ; " 
yet people take up God's book, read a few pages, and con- 
demn the whole of it. Of all the skeptics and infidels I 
have ever met speaking against the Bible, I have never met 
one who read it through. There may be such men, but I 
have never met them. It is simply an excuse. There is no 
man living who wall stand up before God and say that the 
Bible kept him out of the kingdom. 

It is the devil's work, trying to make us believe it is not 
true, and that it is dark and mysterious. The only way to 
overcome the enemy of souls is by the written Word of God. 
He knows that, and so tries to make men disbelieve it. As 
soon as a man is a true believer in the Word of God, he is a 
conqueror over Satan. Young man ! the Bible is true ; what 
have these infidels to give you in its place ? What has made 
England, but the open Bible ? 

Every nation that exalteth the Word of God is exalted, 
and every nation that caste th it down is cast down. Oh ! let 



128 THE BIBLE. 

US cling close to the Bible. Of course we shall not under- 
stand it all at once. But men are not to condemn it on that 
account. Suppose I should send my little boy, five years 
old, to school to-morrow morning, and when he came home 
in the afternoon I say to him, " Willie, can you read ? can 
you write? can you spell? do you understand all about Al- 
gebra, Geometry, Hebrew, Latin and Greek ? " " Why, papa," 
the little fellow would say, " how funny you talk ! I have 
been all day trying to learn the A, B, C." Well, suppose 
I should reply, '^ If you have not finished your education, 
you need not go any more." What would you say ? Why, 
you would say I had gone mad. 

There would be just about as much reason in that, as in 
the way that people talk about the Bible. My friends, the 
men who have studied the Bible for fifty years ; the wise 
men and the scholars, the great theologians, have never got 
down to the depths of it. There are truths there that the 
Church of God has been searching out for the last eighteen 
hundred years ; but no man has fathomed the depths of that 
ever living stream. — D. L. Moody. 

A KNOAVLEDGE OF THE BIBLE A 
REMEDY FOR DOUBTS. 

H! my brethren, if any of us have any doubts 
about any part of the Bible, or if any of us be 
eager to answer any doubts in others, first and 

f- .-^ . before all things learn the mind and spirit of 

Christ, as set forth in the four Gospels. 
In that mind and spirit lies the true solution of all 
our disputes about the nature of the Infinite. In that 
mind and spirit lies the true key to all the mysteries of his 




SJ^ 



THE BIBLE, 129 

life and death ; the meaning of his miracles, the salt of his 
words, the virtue of his sacrifice, the power of his resur- 
rection. 

It was a true feeling which gave to our religion the name 
of that one single pre-eminent portion of the Sacred volume 
— the Gospel. It was a true feeling which led the Fathers 
to take as the subject of the creeds the one doctrine which, 
above all others, belongs to the Gospels, namely: the In- 
carnation. — Arthur Penrliyn Stanley. 



VALUE OF THE BIBLE. 

LADY fair, these silks of mine are beautiful and 
rare — 
The richest web of the Indian loom, which beauty's 
queen might wear; 
And ray pearls are pure as thy own fair neck, with whoSe 
^ radiant light they vie ; 

I have brought them with me a weary way — will my gentle 
lady buy? 

And my lady smiled on the worn old man, through the dark and 

clustering curls 
Which veiled her brow as she bent to view his silks and glittering 

pearls ; 
And she placed their price in the old man's hand, and lightly turned 

away ; 
But she paused at the wanderer's earnest call — My gentle lady, stay! 

O lady fair, I have yet a gem which a purer lustre flings 
Than the diamond flash of the jewelled crown on the lofty brow of 
kings — 
9 




130 TIIE BIBLE, 

A wonderful pearl of exceeding price, whose virtue shall not decay, 
Whose light shall be as a spell to thee, and a blessing on thy way. 

The lady glanced at the mirroring steel where her form of grace was 

seen, 
Where her eyes shone clear and her dark locks waved, their clasping 

pearls between ; 
Bring forth the pearl of exceeding worth, thou traveller gray and 

old. 
And name the price of thy precious gem, and my page shall count 

thy gold. 

The cloud went off from the pilgrim's brow, as a small and meagre 

book, 
TJnchased with gold or gem of cost, from his folding robe he took. 
Here, lady fair, is the pearl of price, may it prove as such to thee ! 
Nay, keep thy gold ; I ask it not, for the Word of God is free. 

The hoary traveller went his way, but the gift he left behind 

Hath had its pure and perfect work on that high-born maiden's 

mind, 
And she hath turned from the pride of sin to the loveliness of truth, 
And given her human heart to God in its beautiful hour of youth. 

— /, G. WhiUier. 



THE BIBLE AND CIVILIZATION. 

outline what the Bible has done for the promo- 
tion of civilization would be like attempting to 
teach all known science. Civilizing agencies are 
to be tested by their fruits. The Gospel entered 
lurope when Paul preached at Philippi. For more 
a thousand years antecedent to the discovery of 
the art of printing it was practically claimed by the civil and 




THE BIBLE. 131 

ecclesiastical powers. Yet it early shut up the vast Roman 
Coliseum, where forty thousand applauding spectators watched 
the doomed slaves as they fought with wild beasts and more 
desperate men. It soon chiselled off the licentious carvings 
from the vases, lamps, and tables of Roman homes. It 
quickly closed the pagan temples of the " eternal city." It 
promptly threw from their pedestals the countless gods of 
Greece. Gradually it has planted Western Europe with 
almost numberless institutions, both beneficent and educa- 
tional ; it has organized in its cities and villages associations 
for the relief of every phase of distress. 

Yolumes could be written descriptive of its work in 
England alone since the days of WicklifFe. Perchance Ed- 
ward YI., the boy king, saw with prophetic eye its relation 
to his country's greatness when he demanded that the Scrip- 
tures should be laid on the three swords in the ceremony of 
his coronation. What the Bible has done for Scotland, the 
most moral and Bible-loving state on the map of the world ; 
for Prussia since the days of Luther; for the heroic Wal- 
denses, amid the fastness of their mountain homes ; for the 
Indian tribes, -when taught by such men as Eliot and 
Brainerd ; for the moral transformation of the West India 
islands; for Madagascar since the accession of Radama II..; 
and even recently for the three great heathen empires, the 
doors of whose sealed cities were opened by Morrison, Judson, 
and Goble with the Golden Key of the Gospel, and for other 
lands has won the praise of impartial historians. 

It has entered no wilderness that under its magic wand 
has not blossomed as the rose, appealing to eternal relation- 
ships for its motives ; overshadowing temporal convenience 
with the fact that " the wages of sin is death, but the gift 
of God is eternal life ; " with its pages glittering with admo- 



132 THE BIBLE, 

nitions against every form of personal, social, and national 
wrong, and with encouragements to the pursuit of all that 
tends towai-d the universal reign of peace, purity, justice, and 
love ; the Bible has marched on, winning a long series of 
conquests, before which the victories of renowned "generals 
fade into nothingness. An infinite mind only can compre- 
hend what it has accomplished for the educational, social, 
and moral uplifting of the nations. — S. V. Leech. 



AVOMAN AND THE BIBLE. 

,jOT only is it the tendency of the Bible and its 
\^ teachings to elevate woman, and to give her, in 
)^^}^ every relation of life, influence and respect, but 
the sacred pages abound in illustrations of the fact 
//"*^^ that, through the divine teachings, woman has been 
jj}^ raised to a position of dignity and social importance 
which heathenism in its palmiest days never knew. 
Throughout all heathen nations woman has ever been the 
drudge and slave of man, either the debased and degraded 
instrument of his grossest passions and pleasures, or the op- 
pressed and toiling servant to do his most menial work — a 
stranger to everything like love, or even respect, and cared 
for only as one might care for his beasts of burden or the 
dog at his feet. 

The Chinese regard the birth of a female child as both a 
misfortune and a shame. One of the standard works of the 
Hindoos says : " The four qualities of woman are ignorance, 
impurity, shame, and fear." One of our missionaries tells us 
that in Africa he has often seen the husband and sons walk- 
ing leisurely along to their hut at sundown, while the heavy 




THE BIBLE, 133 

load was placed on tlie shoulders of the wife and mother, of 
whom no notice whatever was taken, except in the sharp 
order, and even the brutal blow, to make her quicken her 
pace. And the correspondent of one of our widely circulated 
papers, who has been making a tour around the world, says: 
**I have not seen anywhere, even in Turkey, Egypt, or 
India, or among the Mohammedan or Hindoo v/omen, one 
single happy or hopeful face.'* There is nothing in these 
religions to make them happy or hopeful, and the whole 
history of women, except where the principles of the Bible 
have had sway, has been but the record of oppression, and 
debasement, and toil, and suffering, and shame. It is only 
where the Bible comes, or where the power of its teachings 
is felt, that woman is elevated to her true position as the 
companion and socially the equal of man, his sympathizing 
helpmate and friend, his wise and trusted counsellor, and 
the object of his respect and love. 

Look at the Bible record, and see how, in every age, it has 
exalted and honored woman : There is Sarah, a princess in 
character as well as name; Rebekah,-the honored wife of 
Isaac; Rachel, the loved helpmeet of Jacob; Miriam, leading 
the daughters of Israel in response to the sublime song of 
triumph in which Moses, six hundred years before Homer, 
and in even loftier strains than his, sounded the praises of 
Jehovah, who had delivered them ; Deborah, who rose to 
be the judge and deliverer of her people; Ruth, whose 
loving and lovely character has been the admiration of every 
age ; Esther, whose self-denying courage and wisdom was 
the salvation of her nation ; Elizabeth, the honored mother 
of John ; the Virgin Mary, declared by the angel blessed 
among women, as she has been and forever wall be honored 
among men ; Martha and Marj^, the companions and friends 



134 THE BIBLE. 

of Jesus hims^ ; and Dorcas, whose name and good works 
will be a memorial and an example while the world itself 
shall stand ; and then there are such names as Naomi, and 
Hannah, and Lydia, and Eunice, and Lois, and Phebe, and 
the widow of Nain, and the Shunammite widow, and the 
woman of Canaan, and the long list of the faithful women 
saluted by Paul in his various epistles, the mention of each 
of whom is a standing rebuke of the libel that woman is 
ignored or lightly esteemed in the sacred records of inspira- 
tion. 

The Bible disparaging or depressing woman ! It is a base 
and most slanderous assertion — the offspring of gross igno- 
rance or malicious falsehood. It is from the Bible, and only 
from the Bible and its teachings, that woman has been saved 
from the oppression and cruelty, and raised from the degra- 
dation, that have ever been her lot among uncivilized and 
savage nations, and elevated to her true position as the 
daughter, the wife, the mother, and as the honored and loved 
associate and helpmeet and friend of man, the source of his 
true happiness and of his highest earthl}^ enjoyments, if she 
herself is but faithful to the Saviour, — Try on Edwards. 



ONE OF THE S^A^EET OLD CHAPTERS. 

''O'i^NE of the sweet old chapters, 
Vv After a day like this ; 

The day brought tears and trouble, 
The evening brings no kiss. 

No rest in the arms I long for — 

Rest, and refuge, and home; 
Grieved, and lonely, and weary. 

Unto the Book I come. 




THE BIBLE, 135 

One of the sweet old chapters — 

The love that blossoms through 
His care of the birds and lilies 

Out iu the meadow dew. 

His evening lies soft around them ; 

Their faith is simply to be. 
O, hushed by the tender lesson, 

My God, let me rest in thee. 

— Christkm Advocate, 



THE BLESSINGS OF THE BIBLE. 

l^t^^^nJ -^^ of the great blessings which the Bible takes 
with it everywhere is — a day once a week when 
the hard worker can rest and forget that he is a 

r beast of burden, and remember that he is a man. 
Addison wrote of the Sabbath, that it was "a good 
^\ institution, because it made poor people wash and dress 
themselves respectably once a week." The Sabbath was 
made for man — for man, not as shop-keeper, ploughman, 
statesman, but as a rational, moral, religious creature. A 
great authoress in one of our London dailies not long since 
pointed out the contrast between the Christian and the 
Moslem in this respect. He attends the mosque on his Sab- 
bath Friday, devout, perhaps, as the Christian, but always in 
his work-a-day dress ; there is no change of attire, no general 
rest from labor. No; the poor Arab, toiling in his one sordid 
garment, is never, able to say to himself: ^^I am a man, and 
not a beast of burden;" but wherever this Book goes, it seems 
to hush the machineries of every day life into silence. Man 
everywhere throws aside the tools and the soiled garments, 




136 THE BIBLE. 

by means of which he earns his daily bread ; he goes forth 
after his weekly ablutions and change^ refreshed in soul and 
body; and often in this hushed silence — like John in the 
spirit — on the Lord's Day^ he thinks of the white robes of 
the eternal Sabbath. He remembers that he is more than a 
mere animal, to be fed and sheltered — more than a mere 
creature of intellect capable of education ; that his highest 
interests are spiritual, and that the noblest relations which 
he sustains are to God and eternity. 

This Book takes with it, again, a heart ready to sympa- 
thize, and a hand ready to help the suffering of every class 
and in every clime throughout the earth. Look through the 
" History of Great Suffering ! " Who were the most ready 
to help them ? were they not the people called Christians ? 
To help people they had never seen — to help with no selfish 
motive ? Was not that over half a million sent over to India 
a grand fact in favor of the religion of this land ? And now 
the reply comes back. I am told that 16,000 have come to 
Bishop Caldwell in India, ready to lay aside their heathenism 
— whole villages. Why, all other religious systems are re- 
ligions of ^^ self-help." But this one exceptional system 
leavens people everywhere with a religion of "helping 
others." It introduces them into a new joy. It reveals to 
us the grand secret that by helping others we enter into the 
joy of our Lord. The rose is not sweeter for the fragrance 
with which it perfumes the morning ; the well is no bvighter 
for its cup of cold water to the passer-by; but you cannot 
give a shilling to that poor widow in her desolate home 
without feeling that your own home is brighter for the 
Christian act. You cannot send a bunch of flowers from 
your garden to that poor invalid in the garret, without add- 
ing a new bloom to every flower. The very garden smiles 



THE BIBLE. 137 

upon you with a new beauty, and exhilarates you with a 
sweeter fragrance. Canon Mozley has, with a master hand, 
shown that this principle of compassion that converts into a 
pleasure that which was of incalculable advantage to society 
— the alleviation of pain and misery — was a discovery of 
Christianity — a discovery like that of a new scientific prin- 
ciple. The Spartans did not believe in this compassion when 
they cut off at birth their sickly and maimed children, but 
they did believe in '^the survival of the fittest." Hindooism, 
when it places the old and the infirm on the banks of the 
Ganges to be carried away by the next rising of the waters, 
does not believe in this joy of Christian compassion, but in 
"the survival of the fittest." The religion of this Book, 
however, brings God down to the side of men, not as an 
everlasting condemnor, but as a present help in time of 
trouble — brings down a Divine Consoler, who was crowned 
to be the King of suffering humanity; not when he was 
crowned above with the royal diadem of heaven, but when 
he was crowned with thorns here below. It was that lifting 
up under a crown of thorns to the cross, that marked him 
forever as the Man of Sorrow — that draws all men to Him. 
It is he of whom we learnt when children the shortest and 
sweetest verse in the whole Bible — "Jesus wept." That 
attracts us to him under our burdens, trials and sorrows. 
You say that our God is a hard, unsympathetic Being. I 
answer : " Jesus wept ; " and it is this Jesus, with a loving 
heart in his* bosom, and tears in his eyes, that draws human 
hearts to him for sympathy, and sends them forth full of 
help and compassion to heal the woes of humanity. 

— E. Herher Evans, 



138 THE BIBLE. 



^ 

^ 



BUT ONE BOOK. 




HEN Sir Walter Scott lay dying, he was carried 
at his request into his dining-room, that his dying 
^^^^^ eyes might once more rest upon the Tweed, which 
I V'^:^^ he so much loved. Some of you have been in 
that room ; you now remember the view from its 
front window. He asked his son-in-law, Mr. Lockhart, 
to read for him. " What book ? " said Mr. Lockhart. 
'' What book ? " asked Sir Walter ; " there is but one book — 
the Bible — read that." Mr. Lockhart read those blessed 
words which have been balm to thousands of hearts ; words 
which came from the grace-anointed lips of Jesus : " Let not 
your heart be troubled ; ye believe in God, believe also in 
me. In my Father's house are many mansions ; if it were 
not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for 
you." "That is comfort," said the dying man. "I am 
myself again." 

What has infidelity to offer compared with these blessed 
words ? It gives gloom, not glory; darkness, not brightness; 
death, not life. The dying Scotchman, who read so widely, 
and contributed so many immortal pages to literature, gives 
this testimony to the value of the Bible. Mr. Dickens was 
in the habit of writing a letter to each of his sons as he left 
the parental roof In one he urged his son to read the Bible, 
whatever other books he neglected, as it contained the purest 
morality and the best rules of life known in the world. 
When Milton would become " a poet, soaring in the high 
reason of his fancies, with his garland and singing robes 
about him," he must go to the Bible for his high theme. When 
Raphael would perpetuate his name to unborn generations 



THE BIBLE, 139 

he must ascend '' the holy mount," stand in the supernal 
glory, and gaze on the transfigured Christ. As the " Trans- 
figuration " was his greatest, so it was his last work. He 
died in early manhood, with the " Transfiguration " on his 
heart and brain. That picture was carried before him 
through the streets of Kome to his place of burial in the 
Pantheon. When ' Handel was discouraged by attempting 
opera in a foreign language, he accepted an invitation from 
several notables of Ireland to visit Dublin. From a friend 
he received a text from the Bible, and on that text he com- 
posed his immortal work, known at first as the " Sacred 
Oratorio," now known as the '^ Messiah." In Dublin and in 
London this work crowned him with triumphant success and 
unfading glory. It has since made his name famous through- 
out the world. The Bible gave all these men — working in 
difierent departments of genius — their inspiration. Shall we 
be so inconsistent as to rejoice in the streams while we de- 
spise the fountain whence they flowed ? No literature has 
in it the elements of immortality except that which draws 
its inspiration from God's Word. This gave Tasso his strength 
in song, and Michael Angelo his glory in art. The music 
of this world dies with the breath which gives it utterance. 
Only as literature, music, poetry, sculpture and painting are 
linked with him whose name is above every name can they 
possess something of the enduringness of him who is the 
King Immortal. They must at least embody the best re- 
ligious thought of their time. This is true both of the Greek 
poems and plays. 

The office which has been honored by the gifts of Paul 
and the graces of John, by the immortal names of heroes 
and martyrs in the past, and is filled now by some of the 
ablest and best men living, needs no further vindication from 



140 THE BIBLE, 

me. To a blind man only is it necessary to prove that the 
sun at noonday in midsummer gives light. Because of its 
intellectual advantages, then, we should to-day say, " We 
will not forsake the house of God."— i)r. R. S. MacArihur, 



ONE BIBLE ENOUGH. 

^^^^^^T is enough, one sun in heaven, one Bible on 
earth; one the light of the natural world, the 
1^ other the light of the spiritual world. Where is 
natural day ? wdierever the sun shines ! and 
where is spiritual day ? wherever the Bible shines ! 
r^ in either case, day is nowhere else ! true, the moon 
' gives light w^ien the sun has set ; and so the church 
may give light when the Bible is withdrawn, but in both 
cases it is night light, not day light; besides, the sun is not 
set to the moon, but only to the earth ; the moon sees it 
still, though the earth does not, and the moon shines because 
she sees it. 

And so the Bible is not withdrawn from the church, but 
only from the world ; in all such instances the church sees 
it though the world does not; and the church shines only 
because she sees it. If all the moon be dark except half its 
edge line, even that is proof that the sun is still in sight; 
and so if all the church be dark save some small segment, 
even that, however small, is proof that the Bible has not 
quite passed away. Still, the moon rejoices most when the 
sun returns and she is allowed to hide herself in his glory; 
and so the church triumphs most w^hen the Bible returns 
and she is permitted to fade in its excelling splendor. 

. —I.E. SlocJcton. 




THE BIBLE, 141 



JESUS THE GLORY OF THE BIBLE. 

OU have often admired the line of shimmering 
light which shines on the ruffled waters when the 
moon is in the heavens. Look in any other di- 
rection, and the waters are dark and troubled. 
Look toward the orb of night, and you see the glory 
all over the way, right from your feet to the heavens 
above. 

Another standing beside you, looking at another angle, 
will see another line of light and glory; and another, and 
so on endlessly; the moon is really shining over all the water, 
but each one sees only a portion of its radiance, and that 
portion only by looking in one direction. 

So it is in the Bible the glory is shining all over it ; you 
may see nothing of heaven in it so long as you will not look 
in the right direction, but look at the point of sight, look to 
Jesus, and yon will see the glory of the Bible; you cannot 
see it all. Another will see something else that you do not; 
and another, standing at another point, will see something 
that you and he have missed ; but every one who looks ear- 
nestly in the right direction will see something — a path of 
light and glory leading from his own feet across the troubled 
waters of this life up to the heaven above. 

— Ghristian World, 

I HAVE many books that I cannot sit down to read ; they 
are indeed good and sound, but, like half-pence, there goes 
a great quantity to a small amount. There are silver books 
and a few golden books ; but I have a book worth them all 
called the Bible. — John Newton, 



142 



THE BIBLE, 




CHRIST IN THE BIBLE. 

ramble over the pages of Scripture without find- 
y ing Christ is like the tourist strolling through the 
^^ aisles and corridors of Westminster Abbey with- 
out finding the famous Chapel of Henry YII. It 
is there, somewhere within those ancient walls — a 
thing of beauty, perhaps the finest piece of Gothic archi- 
tecture in the world, the tomb of England's kings, and 
the thing which the traveller desires to see more than any- 
thing else in the Abbey, but there are many other objects of 
interest to draw him aside. He may linger in the cloisters 
over the gray tombs of abbots and bishops ; he may tarry 
long over the mouldering ashes of warlike knights and barons, 
or he may muse in the poets' corner among the sleeping bards 
until the shades of evening gather, and never penetrate to 
the highest beauty and glory of the Abbey, this wonderful 
chapel. 

And there are in the Bible poetry and eloquence, and his- 
tory, and philosophy, beauty and sublimity, which may en- 
gross our attention and delay our researches until the shades 
of death gather, and we fail to find the highest glory of the 
Bible, the royal chapel where a crucified Christ was buried, 
and the Christian's King and Redeemer laid down his life 
for the world. 

Our time will be but poorly spent in searching the Scrip- 
tures unless we find our way to Christ. Better visit the 
royal chapel first, and make sure we behold its glories, and 
then we can give what time remains to the shady aisles and 
poets' corner; better find Christ in the Bible first; and then 



THE BIBLE. 143 

it will be time to consider the poetry and eloquence and 
beauty of Scripture. Christ is there somewhere — there as a 
redeeming Saviour, there as our exalted Intercessor, there in 
every respect as the Captain of our salvation. 

And when we enter the tangled aisles of this wonderful 
Abbey we must have a divine guide, or we shall never dis- 
cover the royal chapel. When we enter this labyrinth of 
sacred truth, we must have, a heavenly torch, borne by a 
divine hand, to precede us, or we shall lose our way, and find 
no Christ and no salvation in the Bible. — H. Graham. 



THE BIBLE GOD'S LIGHT. 

WAS once lost for an hour in a subterranean 
cavern ; the oozing moisture from the rocks had 
extinguished our candles, and in creeping through 
the low passes, from chamber to chamber, all our 

f^"^^^ matches had become damp. Between us and the 
outer air stretched a mile of perilous, and sometimes al- 
most impassable labyrinths, and the chill, black air 
around us was full of w^eird, hideous reverberations. Oh, 
how carefully we strove to kindle the old light, and when at 
last it slowly caught and kindled, flinging its blessed lustre 
along those grim rocks and miry ways, then did not that old 
cavern ring again with a great shout of gladness ! 

And such a light the blessed Bible pours through the 
gloomy ways and dark night of life; and this is the light 
infidelity is trying to extinguish. Thank God, they cannot. 
This they may do, wuth their hideous and revolting blas- 
phemy — they may persuade a few poor, deluded creatures to 
put out their own eyes, that, unable to see the light^ the 




144 THE BIBLE. 

blind may lead the blind into the ditch of defilement, and 
over the precipice of destruction. But glory unto God ! they 
cannot put out God's great light in the heavens. It will 
shine along our paths ; it will shine on our death-bed ; it will 
shine on our grave — every hour, every day, it is flinging a 
broader, brighter effulgence into all the dark places of this 
redeenaed world. 

But meantime, not so much in indignation as in pitying 
sorrow, the Christian heart moves over the ineifable madness 
of men who, with their love of darkness, will war with the 
light. They showed me a grand light-house on the shore of 
yonder sea, fitted up at great cost with metallic mirrors and 
crystal lenses, whose ever-burning lamps pour forth a flood 
of light over leagues of weltering waters, and when the mid- 
night deepens, hundreds of weather-beaten mariners catch 
afar ofi" the friendly lustre, and warned of rocks and break- 
ers, lift up joyous eyes heavenward and thank God for the 
flame. But meanwhile, alas ! flocks of swift-winged birds, 
rushing through night and storm, dash themselves against 
the crystal lenses, not, indeed, extinguishing the lustre, but 
falling back into the roaring waters, bleeding — self-destroyed ^ 
dead. Oh ! be warned, ye that set yourselves against God, 
and take counsel against the Almighty. Alas ! alas ! that 
the very light of heaven should only guide your mad feet 
along the broad road of destruction, down the awful preci- 
pice of despair, into the terrible abyss of death. — Charles 
Wadsicorth. 



No man ever did or ever can become truly eloquent with- 
out being a constant reader of the Bible, and an admirer of 
its purity and sublimity. — Fisher Ames, 



THE BIBLE, 



145 




BLESSED BIBLE. 

LESSED Bible ! how I love it! 

How it doth my bosom cheer ! 
What hath earth like this to covet? 

O, what stores of wealth are here ! 
Man was lost and doomed to sorrow; 

Not one ray of light or bliss 
Could he from earth's treasures borrow, 

Till his way was cheered by this. 



Yes, I'll to my bosom press thee, 

Precious Word, Fll hide thee here; 
Sure my very heart will bless thee. 

For thou ever sayest " Good cheer ; " 
Speak, my heart, and tell thy ponderings, 

Tell how far thy rovings led. 
When this book brought back thy wanderings, 

Speaking life as from the dead. 

Yes, sweet Bible ! I will hide thee 

Deep, yes, deeper in this heart; 
Thou, through all my life will guide me, 

And in death we will not part. 
Part in death ? No, never ! never ! 

Through deaths vale I'll lean on thee; 
Then, in worlds above, forever. 

Sweeter still thy truths shall be. 

— Phoebe Palmer, 



The basis and rock on which I, and we all, are bound to 
fix our foothold is the unadulterated faith as taught us by 
the Bible. — William, Emperor of Germany, 

10 



146 THE BIBLE, 




THE BIBLE AND SCIENCE. 

HE Bible is not a scientific, but a religious book, 
^ intended not to inform the scientific and philo- 



sophic understanding, but to instruct the religious 
intelligence of man in those things that make for 
the life that now is, and that which is to come. 
What a blessed fact it is that we thirsty mortals can 
drink a glass of pure water, and quench our burning thirst 
without having to know the chemical analysis of water, or 
how it was originally created ; we are thirsty beings, and if 
our thirst is not slaked we shall die. Meantime, we find 
water is provided ; it is offered to us, and we are told it will 
slake our thirst ; that it was provided in nature for that very 
purpose, and, without stopping to have it analyzed, we 
drink it, and live ; we then experimentally prove it to be 
water, and that all that was claimed for it is true. 

We likewise are religious beings, and if we do not find 
truth, and love, and happiness, and regeneration, and eter- 
nal life, and resurrection, we shall die and perish. God's 
Word is brought to us; it contains truths, or at least state- 
ments and promises that stand over against these spiritual 
hunge rings and thirs tings just as food and drink stand over 
against the hunger and thirst of the body. We take hold 
by faith of these promises, and the hunger and thirst of our 
souls is satisfied. We know the truth of the Bible, there- ► 
fore, not by metaphysical or intellectual demonstrations, but 
by experimental proof — as real in the sphere of our religious 
nature as scientific demonstration is real in the realm of 
matter. 



THE BIBLE, 147 

Two and two make four — that is mathematics ; hydrogen 
and oxygen in certain proportions make water — that is 
science; Christ and Him crucified is the power and wisdom. 
of God for salvation — that is revelation. But how do you 
know ? Put two and two together, and you have four ; 
count, and see. Put hydrogen and oxygen, and you have 
water; taste, and prove. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, 
and thou shalt be saved ; believe, and thou shalt know. 
The last is as clear a demonstration as the others. — George 
F, Pentecost 

SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE. 

HE thing to be lamented is, that the moment men 
^^ of science get hold of a fact they instantly begin 
S^ to set it in opposition to God's Word. But the 
vaunted "fact" of Tuesday often takes another 
shape on Wednesday, and by Thursday is found to 
be no fact at all. The truth is, that geology, as a sci- 
ence, consists mainly of probable guesses. " That field of 
peat," says Sir Charles Lyell, " has probably been 7,000 years 
in course of formation." " No," replies a friend of his own, in 
a published criticism, " I think it quite possible that it has 
only been 700 years in growing." A piece of pottery is found 
in the Yalley of the Nile, and a geologist immediately argues 
that it must have lain there more than 20,000 years ; but an 
antiquary soon points out marks upon it which show it to 
be less than 2,000 years old. Yet it is upon guesses of this 
kind, which do not amount to a tenth part of a proof, that 
the Lyells and Owens and Colensos venture boldly to assert 
that it is clear that Moses knew nothing whatever of the 
subject on which he was writing. Just in the same spirit do 




148 THE BIBLE. 

Bunsen and his followers unhesitatingly assert that the 
growth of languages proves that the world must be more 
than 20,000 years old. "We refer them to the confusion of 
tongues described by Moses, which at once dissipates their 
dream. "Oh ! but that was a miracle," they reply; "and we 
have made up our minds never to believe a miracle." Yery 
well, gentlemen, there we must leave you ; for men who 
make up their minds before inquiring are not acting like 
reasonable beings. A dozen other little Juntos are now at 
work in the same laudable fashion. One set is not quite 
certain that man was "developed " out of an ape. Well, and 
what was the ape " developed " out of? They do not know. 
Our comfort in all this is, that this iniluenza will wear itself 
out like tractarianism or like the infidel fashion of the days 
of Bolingbroke. Men have been striving to get rid of the Bible 
and its inconvenient morality for nearly these 2,000 years, 
but they were never further off from this end than they are 
at present. — Earl of Shafteshury, 



STRIKING THE BIBLE, 

HE religious world has been recently agitated by 
^^ a determination on the part of theologians to 
jT square off and fight the religion of their fathers. 
Some think it argues great pluck for a man to 
assail the Bible and the Church, and set up a new 
religion. The fact is, it requires no courage at all to 
do so, for he is always sure of the favor and applause of a 
multitude who hate the Bible, and would be glad to see it 
struck on any side, and to have Christianity crippled. 

The Bible antagonists do not realize they are attempting 




^1 



THE BIBLE, 149 

to stop an express-train by putting their foot on the track, 
or arrest an Alpine avalanche by bracing themselves against 
one of the ice-cakes. The Bible goes right on, and the 
Church of God goes right on, and Christianity goes right on, 
and the chief damage is done to the critics. 

There have never been so many live churches in the 
United States as' to-day, more people believe the Gospel than 
ever before, and vaster multitudes are attempting to practise 
its precepts. The attempt to shatter the Bible for the last 
300 years has not rent asunder or dislodged a single doctrine 
or sentiment. After its present assailants are all dead their 
funeral sermons will be preached from King James' transla- 
tion, not one verse omitted from the first page of Genesis to 
the last page of Revelation. 

One would think the world would get tired of a bombard- 
ment of the Bible castle when, with all their concentrated 
fire of 300 years, they have not been able to knock out of its 
walls a splinter large enough to make the most sensitive eye- 
ball quiver. ! I am so glad we are in the army which 
will finally win the day. Here and there a repulse may 
come through the perfidy of some officer, or the backing out 
of some traitor in the camp, but there are enough of the 
mounted cavalry of the King to ride down all opposition and 
to dismount the guns of the enemy. I have no nervousness 
as to the result. I am only anxious to be on the right side 
in the contest, and to do my share of the hard marching and 
hard fighting. — T. DeWitt Talmage. 



That book, sir, is the rock upon , which our republic 
rests. — Andrew Jackson, 




150 THE BIBLE, 



RESISTANCE TO THE BIBLE, 

'E have heard that the resistance of ages to this 
blessed book is not yet over — resistance to a 
^^^ff^ book that alights everywhere with healing in its 
f j^c^ wings. Is not this a crowning proof that it comes 
from the same high world that Christ came from, 
and that the book, like the Saviour, is too good for the 
race it has come to bless ? It comes to heal, like the angel 
to the pool of Bethesda; but it troubles too many waters in 
its work to please all, and they cry, "Away with it ! " It 
comes like the ark to the house of Dagon ; but it smites the 
idols and breaks in pieces the objects of trust in which men 
have vested interest, and the Philistines cry, "Away with 
it ! " It comes like the sun ; but all who have their own 
private schemes to enlighten the age — -just as members of 
gas companies would like to put out the sun that they may 
hasten to be rich— unite in the cry, "Away with it." It 
comes like the Christ, casting out the demons of iniquity 
from the souls of men ; but there are yet Gadarenes in the 
world, ready to part with the Christ in order to save their 
swine. 

"Away with it!" But can you replace it? Will you 
drag down my old home without building me another ? This 
old home may not be built exactly to answer your modern, 
newly-discovered ideas, but this old faith has been our dwell- 
ing-place for generations. It has sheltered our fathers from 
many a storm. It has been to us as the shadow of the Al- 
mighty. We have prayed and sung with joy under its pro- 
tection ; we have thought it faced another home over there, 



THE BIBLE. 151 

and that when our dead ones went out here, we knew where 
to find them again. Tlie eternal sun seemed to us to shine 
on that old home, and will you drag it all down and turn us 
out as homeless vagabonds to the unsheltered wilderness, 
without hope and without a God in the world ? Shall we be 
foolish enough to act like the sloth spoken of by Bulwer, 
which, having eaten up the last green leaf upon the tree 
upon which it has established itself, ends by tumbling down 
from the top, and dying by inanition. 

We know it is boldly asserted in popular reviews in these 
(lays that all this is already accomplished ; that the old book 
is demolished once more. Yes, once more. How many 
times has it been demolished before ? Bishop Butler, in the 
advertisement to his great work, says : " It has come, I know 
not how, to be taken for granted by many people, that Chris- 
tianity is not so much a subject of inquiry, but that it is now 
at length discovered to be fictitious." That was just one 
hundred and forty-two years ago. Discovered to be fictitious ? 
Then, is it not strange that so much ink has been wasted, so 
many books written to destroy it since, and all passed up, 
one after the other, to the cobwebs of the higher shelf in the 
library ? and the Bible, still remaining on the study table as 
an unsolved problem, with a self-conscious sense of power, 
seems to address all the other volumes in the library, 
'^ Books may come, and books may go, but I go on forever." 
— E. Herher Evans, 



He who believes the Scriptures to have proceeded from 
Him who is the Author of nature, may well expect to find 
the same sort of difficulties in it as are found in the constitu- 
tion of nature.— Or^^e?^. 




152 THE BIBLE, 



WHY MEN HATE THE BIBLE. 

^^0 thoughtful and well-informed person can deny 
\^ that many persons of skeptical tendencies are 
persons of good behavior, correct morals, and 
apparently blameless lives, while at the same 
time there are men who profess Christianity who 
seem far beneath them in the average excellence of 
their character and conduct. But it is nevertheless un- 
deniable that while these persons treat religion with some 
respect, the vicious, the dissolute, the depraved, and the 
criminal as a class, dislike the Bible, How many Bibles will 
you find in the pockets of the roughs arrested in a street 
fight ? Among the weapons, curiosities and possessions taken 
from the pockets of criminals and laid up in police stations, 
who ever saw a New Testament? Was it a Bible with 
which that drunken wretch knocked his wife down ? Oh, 
no ; it was a bottle! 

Now what is the reason that drunkards over their cups, 
gamblers at their dice, rogues dividing their plunder, and 
assassins plotting against men's lives, all hate the Bible, 
curse Christianity, and blaspheme Christ? Do these men 
dislike any other religion as much ? Do they find fault with 
the Koran ? Do they curse the "Age of Reason ? " Do they 
damn infidels for a pack of fools and hypocrites? What, 
then, is the cause of this malignant hate against the Bible — 
a book which, if some infidels may be believed, justifies, ap- 
proves, and fosters every wrong, and which hence ought to 
be as often found in the pockets of rogues as a pack of cards, 
a revolver, a slung-shot, or a bottle of whiskey? 



THE BIBLE, 153 

The fact is well known that bad men hate the Bible, and 
good men love it. Why ? Simply because the Bible con- 
demns sin and approves righteousness. The instinct of self- 
preservation causes evil men to object to a book which con- 
demns their course, and warns them of perdition at the end 
of it. But what would the laws be worth if villains and 
thieves were suited with them ? Where would be the pro- 
priety of appointing a committee of murderers and cut-throats 
to revise the statutes of a nation ? Rogues are not partial 
to good laws; thieves hate officers of justice; liars dislike 
men who will tell the truth ; licentious men sneer at purity 
and piety, and infidels find fault with the Bible and Chris- 
tianity. One of the Western States, it is said, was settled 
largely by absconding debtors. The result was seen in the 
laws of the new commonwealth, by which the collection of 
an honest debt w\as rendered almost an impossibility. 

There has been published by skeptics a New Testament 
"revised by the spirits" — that is, the spirits of devils that 
swarm the earth on every hand. Of course every passage 
relating to adultery or immorality is expunged or explained 
away ; loving your enemies is not required ; laying up treas- 
ures in heaven is not enjoined, and, as a whole, the book is 
toned down to the moral plane of those lying devils and their 
followers, and affords an unmistakable index of the character 
of those who did the work. They are suited with a Bible 
that allows adultery and unclean ness, and are angry at one 
which forbids it. They are suited with a God who allows 
them to do as they like, and angry if their sins are forbidden, 
their iniquities condemned, or their lusts restrained. The 
blasphemer wants no Bible which forbids cursing; the 
drunken deist wants no book which warns him that he can- 
not enter the kingdom of God ; the rum-selling infidel wants 



154 THE BIBLE. 

no prophet to thunder in his ears, " Woe unto him that giv- 
eth his neighbor drink, that pattest thy bottle to him, and 
maketh him drunken" (Hab, xi. 15), and the licentious 
scoffer has no relish for a book which pronounces blessings 
on the pure in heart, and which points to the lake of fire as 
the destiny of the votaries of wickedness and lust. 

Of course all skeptics are not bad men, nor are all who 
pretend to honor the Bible good men. There are infidels 
who live above their principles, while there are professors 
of Christianity who live contrary to Christ's words. There 
are skeptics who may be Christian in sentiment and life, 
while there are church members who are infidel all through, 
and ought to be drummed out of the camp where they are 
traitors, and sent through the enemy's lines, where they 
belong. There are skeptics who have not forgotten, and can 
never forget, the lessons which Christian parents taught 
them long ago ; and there are also Christians who retain in 
their nature and manifest in their lives the hereditary faults 
which vicious, godless, and unbelieving ancestors have con- 
ferred upon them. But still the general rule holds good : a 
book which bad men hate must be a good one, and a book 
which good men love can hardly be a bad one. Let us, 
then, be wary, lest while we condemn the Bible we find in 
the end that the Bible will condemn us; for if we believe 
the Bible to be wrong in theory, we are quite likely to be 
ourselves wrong in practice. — H. L. Hastings. 



He who, after a patient and laborious investigation of the 
Christian evidences, is in doubt as to the authenticity of the 
sacred Scriptures, is very near to a total rejection of them. 

Tames Hamilton Havies, 



THE BIBLE. 



155 




THE EFFECTS OF DESTROYING THE 

BIBLE. 

ET me be permitted to suppose somewhat, at least, 
of an approach toward the utter destruction of 
the Book. First, copies of the volume itself, in 
all shapes and sizes, in all tongues and versions, 
^ shall have been collected, heaved in pyramidal piles, 
and fired until but dust and ashes remain ; no Bible 
anywhere ! This is but a very little thing, however, 
compared with that to be accomplished. Then all literature 
— prose, poetry, tome and folio, essay and sermon, drama 
and lyric, hymn and idyll — must be subjected to a process 
either of utter destruction or of perfect, absolutely perfect, 
expurgation, so that no grace of style, nor elegance of allu- 
sion, or aptness of quotation, nor felicity of metaphor, sug- 
gestive of or derived from the Book, shall remain in such 
volumes. 

Then visit the galleries, private and public, devoted to the 
exhibition of art. Here are halls frescoed with the products 
of old masters and new ; here are pedestals and niches 
crowned and crowded with the triumphs of the chisel and 
the sculptor. Blot from the canvas the " Last Supper," the 
"Transfiguration," the "Ascension," the "Light of the 
World ; " pluck from the pedestal and from yonder niches 
the "Moses" and the "David" of Angelo, or such forms and 
expressions of majesty, tenderness, purity, and grace as their 
creators learned and caught from study of the teachings, or 
fellowship with the heroes of the Book. 
Tfiv Then haste to the baptismal registries of the Church, and 



156 THE BIBLE. 

instead of Mary, write Cleopatra ; of Rachel, Messalina ; of 
John, Nero; and of Peter, Caligula — erase whatever there 
reminds one of the Eible. Then on to the libraries of law, 
and let all codes, statutes, enactments, constitutions, in which 
shall be found reverence for God, respect for liberty, protec- 
tion for reputation and person, defence of woman and of 
feebleness, and guarantee of equal and impartial justice, for 
meanest plebeian as for meanest plutocrat ; let all such as 
owe their humanity, their justice, their impartiality to the 
genius and the teachings of the Book vanish and be for- 
gotten. 

Then, away to the cemeteries, urban and suburban, civic 
and rustic ; to the crypts and vaults ; to the stately minister 
and to the humble chapel where sleep the dead, and on 
whose tombs Hope, Faith, and Love have carved the blessed 
texts in which the widow found a calm and the despairing 
consolation. See! see! 'Tis a November midnight; nor 
star nor moon rides the cloud-draped heavens. No light, 
save the fitful flash from yonder moving form. That is one 
of the myriad conspirators against the human race, who on 
this grim night simultaneously visit the graveyards of the 
Christian world, that from the slab and obelisk they may 
blot out the Bible. See ! he bends, and with light of lantern 
reads: "I am the resurrection and the life;" "Blessed are 
the dead;" "In my Father's house are many mansions." 
Now, he seizes chisel and mallet, and begins — chip ! chip ! 
chip ! The lone night winds as they travel o'er the spot 
take up upon their dusky wings a burden sadder than they 
ever bore — the sob, the sigh, the low-toned throb of heart- 
chords snapping ; for henceforth the chamber of the dying 
shall be one of horrors, death's rule a reign of terror, and the 
graveyard " the abomination of desolation." 



THE BIBLE, 157 

I need not imagine more, though the half is not yet pic- 
tured; for the fruits of Christianity in manners, in civiliza- 
tion, in treatment of criminals and of the insane, in homes 
for aged, for orphans, for widows, for idiots, for outcast 
women ; in popular education, and in kindred generous and 
gracious institutions; these all must also suffer destruction 
before we shall have by any means attained unto the exter- 
mination of either the Book or the Faith. — Rev, Thomas 
Guard. 

OUR ANSWER TO THE SKEPTIC. 

M5^E will say, then, to all who hate the Bible, and would 
^S^ tear it from us, if they could : 

" We won't give up the Bible, 
God's holy book of truth ; 
The staff of hoary age, 

And guide of early youth." 

— Andrew MansJiip, 

THE BIBLE OUR ONLY SOLACE IN 
DEATH. 

real mourners there is left only a single comfort 
^^ that will prove satisfactory. We may reason 
^^ and argue, but all in vain. No assurance about 
its being better for the friends we have lost to be 
w^iere they are ; no chilly philosophy as to manly 
fortitude or womanly endurance ; no professions of sin- 
cere sympathy counselling courage — nothing is sufficient for 
our terrible bereavements except the calm declaration: ^'Thy 




158 ^^^ BIBLE, 

brother shall rise again." We insist upon the certainty that 
some time we must be reunited to the hearts we regret and 
remember with our tears. 

Just here the Scripture meets us positively : ^^ For if we 
believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also 
which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him." We cannot 
take away death ; but we can take the sting out of death. 
We must enter the conflict with the last enemy. "But 
thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory, through our 
Lord Jesus Christ." At last there comes something authori- 
tative ; the moment we read a verse of inspiration like these 
we are studying, we feel as we do when we see a great 
meteoric stone — we say, " This is a piece of another planet." 
— Charles S. Rohinson. 



A BOOK FOR A DYING PILLO^A;^. 

^ you know a Booh that you are willing to put 
under your head for. a pilloio when you lie dying? 
Very loell ; that is the Booh you xoani to study 
while you are living. There is but one such 
Book in the world. For one, I have not made up 
my mind to put under my head when I lie dying any- 
thing written by Voltaire, or Strause, or Parker. We 
are to be scientifically careful when we choose a book for a 
dying pillow. If you can tell me what you want for a dying 
pillow, I will tell you what you want for a pillow of fire in 
life — that is the Bible ; spiritually and scientifically under- 
stood by being transmuted into deeds ; sentiment is worth 
nothing until it becomes principle, and principle is worth 
nothing until it becomes action. — Josejph GooTc, 




THE BIBLE. 



159 




THE BIBLE PRECIOUS. 

OW precious is the book divine, 
By inspiration given ; 
Bright as a lamp its doctrines shine, 
To guide our souls to heaven. 

It sweetly cheers our drooping hearts. 

In this dark vale of tears; 
Life, light, and joy it still imparts, 

And quells our rishig fears. 

This lamp, through all the tedious night 

Of life, shall guide our way ; 
Till we behold the clearer light 

Of an eternal day. 

— John FaivceU, 



THE BIBLE A PARADISE OF 
DELIGHTS. 

^^HE reading of the sacred Scriptures is a spiritual 

•) meadow, and a Paradise of delights; moreover, 

^^ far superior to that Paradise where Adam dwelt. 

'^ For God lias planted this Paradise, not upon 

earth but in the souls of believers. He has not 

plnced this Paradise in Eden, confining it to one place ; 

but He has expanded it everywhere upon the earth. 

And that you may see that He has diffused the Scriptures 

everywhere throughout the habitable world, hear the prophet 

saying : " Their line is gone forth into all the earth, and 




160 THE BIBLE. 

their words to the ends of the world." Whether you trans- 
port yourself to the Indies, w^hich the rising sun first re- 
gards ; whether you go to the ocean^ whether you navigate 
the Black Sea, or depart to the Southern regions, you 
hear all, everywhere, reasoning upon these things that 
are in the Scriptures with a different voice, but with the 
same fiiith ; with a different tongue, but with the same 
understanding, for the sound of the tongue differs, but the 
practice of religion does not differ; and they speak in a 
boisterous tongue, but they are wise in understanding ; they 
commit errors in the sound, but they cultivate piety in their 
manners. Do you see the magnitude of the Paradise which 
extends to the ends of the earth? — Ghrysostom. 



Hold fast to the Bible as the sheet-anchor of your liberties; 
write its precepts on your hearts, and practice them in your 
lives. — U. S. Grant, 

Within this awful volume lies 
The mystery of mysteries. 
Oh ! happiest they of human race, 
To whom our God has given grace 
To hear, to read, to fear, to pray, 
To lift the latch, and force the way ; 
But better had they ne'er been born, 
Who read to doubt, or read to scorn. 

—Bit Walter Scott. 



OUR CHURCH. 

% LOVE thy Church, O God ; 
M Her walls before thee stand, 
Dear as the apple of thine eye, 
And graven on thy hand.'' 

" The Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of 
the truth."— 1 Tim. iii. 15. 

(161) 

11 



OUR CHURCH. 




EHOLD ! the daughter of the King, the bride 
All glorious within, the bride adorned 
Comely in broidery of gold ! behold, 
She comes apparelled royally, in robes 
Of perfect righteousness, fair as the sun, — 
With all her virgins, her companions fair, — 
Into the Palace of the King she comes. 
She comes to dwell foreverraore ! Awake. 
Eternal harps, awake, awake, and sing ! — 
The Lord, the Lord, our God Almighty reigns ! 

— Robert Pollock, 



(162) 




TUE (^U UR(B n ,Uf U UU ©eiBLi^iO 



OUR CHURCH, 




[written- expressly for this work by AMANDA 
ELIZABETH DENNIS.] 



E leave our sandals at the door, 

And walk, with noiseless, rev'reot feet, 
Within the walls, where, evermore, 
Resounds in measures soft and sweet 
The boundless praise of Christ. 

We leave outside all pain and care, 

And every vexing thought of ill, 
And wait, with hearts athrob with prayer, 

The troubling of the waters still 
Of His all-healing love. 

Dear Church of Christ, our souls are glad 
To wait within thy walls of peace ; 

Whatever woes our hearts have had 
Shall find in Thee a glad surcease, 
A satisfying balm ! 

No outside hurt shall weave its thrall, 
To mar the peace of thy dear fame ; 

One Church, one love, one Christ o'er all, 

Sweet peace and unity maintain 

Forever and for aye I 

(163) 




THE CHARACTER OF THE CHURCH. 

HAT, then, is the true notion of the Church ? 
What is the ideal of its constitution ? I answer : 
The Church is a religious society, governed by 
divine revelation alone. This statement, in my 
judgment, embodies all that is essential to the con- 
stitution of the Church. I will not say that there can- 
not be a church without certain articles, officers, or 
ordinances. Neither will I say that any association must be 
a church which has certain articles, officers, or ordinances. 
But this I do say : that no society can be a church unless it 
be a religious society, governed by divine revelation, and by 
this alone ; and further, that every such society must be a 
church. There never was, is not now, and never can be, 
any other ti-ue Church than one of this description. Nor can 
I hesitate a moment to add that, when I speak of its being 
governed by divine revelation alone, I mean by its own 
understanding of that revelation ; only requiring that it ex- 
ercise its understanding with due reverence toward God and 
due respect for the whole Christian brotherhood, in ardent, 
patient, studious, prayerful, practical desire to be led into 
all truth by the spirit of truth. All this, indeed, is logically 
and philosophically involved in the proposition itself. 

To me it is clear that the original intention was that the 
whole human race should constitute the one undivided mem- 
bership of the Church. Church and state, if designed to be 
separately and difterently organized, were always to exist in 
close union and perfect harmony. Their separation, how- 

(164) 



OUR CHURCH, 1^5 

ever expedient now, could not have been demanded by the 
primitive condition of things. This expediency is an effect 
of the introduction of eviL Revelation, in whatever form 
furnished and to whatever organs restricted, would have 
qualified these organs for the exercise of infallible authority. 
The multiplying generations, with no tendency to error in 
themselves, with nothing to suggest it in creation or provi- 
dence, and with nothing to occasion it among their social 
instructors, would have continued forever to enlarge their 
acquaintance with truth, and to enrich their character and 
estate with the blessings of obedience ; every birth into the 
world would have been a birth into the Church. The 
prattle of the child of a year or two old would have been 
readily inspired with the worshipful spirit of the patriarch 
of a thousand years, and the softest lisping of its all-believing 
love might have been more touching to the heart of God 
than the sublirnest anthem of angels ever sung before His 
throne. — Thomas H. Stocldon. 



SPIRITUALITY OF THE CHURCH. 

HEN the main business of life has become in- 
volved in subtleties and questions of critical 
scholarship and philosophy, so that the people 
are bewildered by cries of Lo here ! and Lo 
there ! we all need to be brought back to common 
sense by some plain-speaking Micah, who demands : 
"To what purpose is the multitude of your speculations? 
What does the Lord your God require but to do justly, to 
love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?" 




166 OUB CHVRCH, 

We must compel scholarship to bear a part in this work 
of implifying religion, instead of multiplying conundrums. 
The literature of recent inquiry is already immense ; and, 
for its proper purpose, much of it is both necessary and 
invaluable. But, except to a limited constituency of stu- 
dents, it has become quite unmanageable. We may all find 
it worth while to follow its drift and weigh its results, but 
whoever attempts to find in it a guide of life must be thrown 
into despair by finding that ten new questions are raised for 
every one that is settled. Much of this sort of trouble comes 
from looking to external authorities and ancient records, not 
for the confirmation and support of faith, but for its origin 
and essence. 

Never mind the old obscurities ; the sun shines to-day ! 
Alas for him who must go hunting up and down the centuries 
for documentary evidence of his title to a spiritual inherit- 
ance, or who cannot be certain that he is " a man with a 
mind" till the chemist and antiquarian have brought in their 
final report ! Alas for him who thinks it necessary to settle 
the authorship of the fourth Gospel, or the primacy of Peter, 
or the possibility of miracles, or the genesis of life, before he 
can begin to live like a glad-hearted child of God ! And 
alas for the Church if, in her conscious ignorance of spiritual 
mysteries, or her weariness of scholastic noises, she should 
yield to the temptation to put religious work on low grounds, 
by ignoring man's inmost need, to become a caterer to his 
intellectual curiosity, or to minister chiefly to his physical 
and social welfare! Nothing which concerns humanity is 
wholly foreign to our work. But if we f^iU in with the 
plausible philanthropy which seeks only to make the human 
animal more comfortable and more intelligent, we shall soon 
lose the power for these lower services 5 and the reproving 



OUR CHUECJar, 1^7 

voice will say, " These ought ye to have done, and not to 
leave the other undone." Dr. Johnson speaks to the point : 
"As no man is good but he who wishes the good of others, 
so no man has the highest goodness but he who wishes the 
highest good of others." 

All religion assumes that man is spirit as God is spirit, 
and that thus they are related. Some religions make little 
of this relation. Christianity makes everything of it. The 
Church that fails to affirm and emphasize the fact of man's 
spiritual nature has lost its reason for existence. And what 
is meant by man's spiritual nature ? At least this : the 
super-material quality of mind, its potency and promise of 
divinity ; that man is not all body ; that he is capable of 
converting his animal nature and sense surroundings into 
stepping-stones to a higher life — a life of wisdom and good- 
ness; that, as his body is built up from the material world, 
so his spirit derives its nourishment from a realm of its own 
kind. Hence, by failing to give the spiritual nature its just 
supremacy, man arrests his own development, misses his 
birthright, condemns himself to a lower range of existence 
and an inferior sort of happiness. To admit this fact of 
man's spiritual nature is, therefore, to admit that his position 
is one of solemn moral exposure; that whatever defiles or 
degrades the spirit shuts out heaven; that the supremacy of 
spiritual interests is more important than all the wealth, 
pleasures, and honors of the world, or than life itself; that for. 
the promotion of spiritual interests the higher resources of 
the universe can be depended upon and drawn upon ; and 
that the truths which relate to these matters are the very 
highest order of truths. 

The Church, whose mission is to testify to man's spiritual 
nature, needs and resources, falls into apostasy whenever she 



168 OUR CHURCH, 

allows anything else to take the first place. A weak faith 
in spiritual facts and powers makes a weak ministry and a 
lean-souled laity. The vision of heavenly things fades out ; 
zeal for diffusing spiritual good declines; the Church drops 
toward the lower levels, merges itself in the world, and 
becomes a power for evil rather than good. 

The measure of a true Church appears, therefore, in its 
power to promote spirituality-; that is, the higher life of wis- 
dom and goodness, the love of truth and of duty, which are 
all one with the love of God and man. Ever since faith in 
the ascending Jesus gladdened the hearts of believers with 
the vision of humanity immortalized by divinity, the mis- 
sionary zeal of the Church has been kept alive by the per- 
suasion that every human being is capable of rising into 
God's likeness and blessedness through obedience to spiritual 
truth, or of sinking into infernalism of character and con- 
dition through rejection and disobedience. I suppose this 
persuasion, or something like it, reflects the serious wisdom 
and experience of mankind, and still constitutes the reason 
for the existence of the Church, and a large part of its work- 
ing capital. 

M. Guizot speaks of the idea of a spiritual society as " per- 
haps the highest idea that ever drew men together." But if 
there is to be a spiritual society, a kingdom of God on earth, 
it must be composed of spiritual persons; that is, of persons 
devoted to truth and good. Hence, every herald of the true 
life must summon men to prepare the way of the Lord by 
putting away evil and putting on the new man. The Divine 
order must be set up in the private soul ; spiritual life, which 
is easily choked by foul weeds, must be cultivated ; and those 
who love it must be drawn together in a fellowship of faith 
and labor. From each congregation, as from a luminous 



OUR CHURCH. 169 

centre, the life must spread, claiming and winning for itself 
the possession and sovereignty of the world. All the king- 
doms of trade, industry, literature, science, art, politics, must 
merge in this kingdom of the Spirit and in the service of a 
purified humanity. Thus alone shall we secure freedom, 
peace and progress. Thus alone will the desire of nations 
be realized in the ideal society and the solidarity of interests, 
classes and races. Only in this supremacy of spiritual laws 
and this sunshine of spiritual love will be found a field for 
deploying all human powers and a climate for the generous 
growths of a civilization whose fruits shall not be poisonous. 
Beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that com- 
eth in the name of the Lord with these tidings of good ! 
Beautiful and glorious the Church which can thus make 
itself felt as a power for bringing in everlasting righteous- 
ness. — Rev. G. G. Ames. 



THE REVIVAL THE CHURCH NEEDS. 

.jOT all revivals are a blessing to the Church. 
^ Some are exclusively human as to agencies and 
results, and do little to raise the moral tone of 
society. They are mere outbreaks of spasmodic 
excitement, kindled by artificial methods. The in- 
terest passes away with the excitement, and in a short 
time there remain no evidences either in the Church or 
out of it that there has been a revival. And so there have 
been in the history of the Church what are called "man- 
made " and " spurious " revivals. It is not the fact that 
these were attended with great excitement that condemns 
them as spurious. In all genuine revivals there is intense 




170 OUR CHURCH, 

excitement. Peter and John made no small stir in Jerusa- 
lem, and every man who is eminently successful in the 
awakening and conversion of souls does the same. But the 
excitement is an incident and not an end. When it passes 
away the blessings of the spiritual shower remain. The na- 
ture of the work will be seen by an application of the Divine 
test : " By Jheir fruits ye shall know them." When there are 
no visible fruits, in continued zeal and devotion of the Church, 
and in the thorough reform of those who profess to have been 
converted, we may be sure that the work was not of God. 

The revival we need is not a temporary excitement, but a 
revival of true Christian living. We do not need a revival 
of that religion which consists simply of devout fervors of 
the prayer-meeting and camp-ground, which sings sweet 
hymns and applauds sweet sermons, and then goes straight 
off to engage in worldly and sinful self-indulgence and in 
doubtful business transactions. The Church needs such a 
revival of righteousness that the closest scrutiny will not 
reveal any business " crookedness " in any of its members. 
The religion which keeps God's commandments, which tells 
the truth and sticks to its promises; which pays a hundred 
cents to the dollar; which cares more for a righteous char- 
acter than for a fine coat; w^hich denies ungodly lusts, and 
can be trusted in every stress of temptation ; which leads 
men to do justly, love mercy, and act charitably in all their 
relation to their fellow-men, is what the world needs. A 
conversion that means anything less than this is not worth 
much to the Church or to the subjects of it. 

This revival of practical religion must begin in the Church. 
Judgment must begin at the house of God. Do all those 
who have sworn allegiance to Christ give evidence that they 
are following him? Do they show by their meekness, hu- 



OUR CHURCH. < 171 

mility, and Christian conversation that they are the Lord's? 
Can we go on " Change," and, by the way in which they 
deal, select from business men of the world those who have 
vowed to follow the Saviour? Are there not some in the 
Church whose business morality is far below the Gospel 
standard? If there are, then the first step toward a revival 
is to insist on their reformation as the only alternative to 
excision. If such a reform is needed, it must be made as 
the indispensable condition of the Divine blessing. God will 
not bless a church that winks at immorality in any of its 
members. Such hindrances must be removed to prepare the 
way for the Lord to work. 

We need also a revival of spiritual religion. Many in the 
Church whose character for integrity is above suspicion, who 
are true and upright in all the relations of life, are yet cold 
and formal in religion. They have no enthusiasm, no joy in 
their own religious experience, and no zeal for the salvation 
of souls. They need to be " quickened " into " newness of 
life," to have that fresh influx of vitality and power which 
equips for the work, and fills the soul with joy in doing it. 
A religion of forms and ceremonies, however scrupulously 
observed, is unsatisfying to the possessors, and has no attrac- 
tions for the unconverted. Without the presence and work 
of the Spirit religion has no value, and a genuine revival of 
religion is impossible. 

We need a continuous revival. We have had enough 
" high tides " and " tidal waves," enough of ebb and flow. 
The element of periodicity in revival effort works injury to 
the Church by making the impression on the memberships 
that there are only special times and seasons when they are 
expected to do personal work for souls, or can do it success- 
fully. It is fraught with unspeakable peril to the uncon- 



172 OUR CHURCK. 

verted by encouraging the habit of deferring repentance to 
"a more convenient season." They wait for a revival; and 
many die waiting. What we need, therefore, is a revival 
that shall last all the year and years. Nor is this impossi- 
ble nor impracticable. There can be no doubt that God 
would have the Church in a state of revival all the time ; 
and what God wants the Church to do, it certainly can do. 
A genuine revival is the normal condition of the Church. 
There is something abnormal and unheal thful in a revival 
that so exhausts the energies of the Church that it has 
to be discontinued. All that is essential to do for a 
revival may be done at any and all seasons of the year. 
Personal work for souls is indispensable, and that can be 
done at any time, and should be done all the time. The 
Divine power needed is available all the time; souls are 
in peril all the time ; why, then, should not the Church 
be incessantly active ? Some one has said, " The Church 
should always be up to the conversion point,"' That this is 
possible is proved by the fact that in some churches there 
are conversions every week in the year. that this might 
be true of every church! — Central Christian Advocate. 

^A^ORLDLINESS A FOE TO THE 
CHURCH. 

^iOp^^HE Christian is assailed by no temptations more 
^w\i/?'^^ subtle, more constant, or harder to resist, than 
the temptation to worldliness. He is in the 
^ world and has to attend to worldly business, and 
constantly breathes a worldly atmosphere, and is 
therefore subject to the strongest inducements to lower 
his life and conduct to the standards prevailing about 
him. It is the influence of the multitude, the example of 



OUR C RUBOR, 173 

the wealthy, and many in high positions, that he has to 
withstand. How few there are who resist these influences 1 
It has come to be a proverb that Christians cannot be dis- 
tinguished from worldlings. The greatest curse and danger 
to the Christian Church of to-day is its worldliness. Worldly 
maxims, and customs, and habits prevail to an alarming 
extent in Christian households, in ecclesiastical affairs, and 
even in the worship of the sanctuary. It requires more than 
the ordinary moral stamina and religious integrity not to 
yield to the tide of worldliness T/hich threatens to engulf the 
Church and extinguish all vi^il godliness among the people. 
Only the strongest resolution, ibrtified by the grace of God, can 
enable us to resist the contagious example of wicked men in 
high places, and stand firmly in the truth and unsullied purity 
of a genuine Christian character. How much we need, in 
these latter days, the spirit of such strong, heroic souls as 
Daniel and the three Hebrew children who could resist all 
the seductions of the Babylonish court, and maintain their 
fidelity to God in spite of the den of lions and the fiery 
furnace ! The history of the Church is filled with examples 
of heroic fidelity to duty against the voice of the world, and 
in face of the greatest perils. '^ Nothing on earth surpasses 
the moral grandeur of those scenes in which one man alone^ 
for the sake of truth, stands opposed to many." Such was 
Stephen before the Jewish Sanhedrin, and Luther at the 
Diet of Worms, and Knox. Such were thousands of martyrs 
who have died rather than conform to the world. Such, 
also, was Milton's Abdiel, who when a third part of the host 
of heaven had revolted, was still faithful. 

" Among the faithless, faithful only he ; 
Among innumerable false, unmoved ; 
Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified, 



174 ^^^ CHURCH, 



His loyalty lie kept, his love, his zeal ; 

Nor number, nor example with him wrought 

To swerve from truth, or change his constant mind, 

Though he stood single and alone." 

— Western Christian Advocate. 



THE CHURCH IN THE ^A/'ORLD. 

HE Church in the world is like a ship in the ocean. 
The ship is safe enough in the ocean so long as the 
ocean is not in the ship. The Church is safe enough in the 
world so long as the world is not in the Church. 



THE WORLD FEARS THE CHURCH, 

^mJ^Rt^E may have learnt, both from sacred history, and 
times of reformation, that the kings of this world 
have both ever hated and instinctively feared the 
Church of God, whether it be for that their doc- 
trine seems much to favor two things to them so 
dreadful — liberty and equality; or because they are the 
children of that kingdom, which, as ancient prophecies 
have foretold, shall in the end break to pieces and dissolve 
all their great power and dominion. And those kings and 
potentates who have strove most to rid themselves- of this 
fear by cutting off or suppressing the true Church, have drawn 
upon themselves the occasion of their own ruin, while they 
thought with most policy to prevent it. Thus Pharaoh, when 
once he began to fear and wax jealous of the Israelites, lest 
they should multiply and fight against him^ and that his fear 




OUR chuecb:. 



175 



stirred him up to afflict and keep them under, as the only 
remedy of what he feared, soon found that the evil which 
before slept came suddenly upon him, by the preposterous 
way he took to prevent it. — John Milton. 




THE CHURCH A BRIDE. 

LAD in a robe of pure and spotless white, 

The youthful bride, with timid steps, comes forth, 
To greet the hand to which she plights her troth, 
Her soft eyes radiant with a strange delight. 
The snowy veil which circles her around 
Shades the sweet face from every gazer^s eye, 
And thus enwrapt, she passes calmly by. 
Nor casts a look, but on the unconscious ground 
So should the Church, the Bride elect from Heaven, 
Remembering whom she goeth forth to meet. 
And with a truth that cannot brook deceit. 
Holding the faith which unto her is given, 
Pass through this world, which claims her for a while, 
Nor cast about her longing look nor smile. 

— Alice B. Neal. 



THE CHURCH CHRIST'S BRIDE. 

/^^)W CHURCH of God ! believe thyself invincible, and 
"^ jc^ thou art invincible ; but stay to tremble and fear, 
'^"'- and thou art undone. Lift up thy head and 
j^^' say, " I am God's daughter; I am Christ's bride." 
Do not stop to prove it, but affirm it; march 
through the land, and kings and princes shall bow 
down before thee, because thou hast taken thine ancient 
glory. — Charles S'purgeon, 





176 ^UR CHURCH, 



PURITY OF THE CHURCH. 

N the purity of the Church lies its strength. Its 
spirituality is its health, its vitality, its power. 
In proportion as it is free from worldliness will 
be its power for good and its purifying influence 
on human society ; and, on the other hand, the more 
the spirit of the world pervades the Church, the less 
fitted for its divine mission of disciplining all nations the 
Church will be, because of the consequent diminution of its 
strength. The Church preserved in its pristine purity, 
" looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the 
sun, and terrible as an army with banners," but its alliance 
with the world, or its subjection to prevalent worldly influ- 
ences, corrupts its purity, mars its beauty, destroys its lustre, 
and impairs its strength. Samson paid dearly for his incon- 
tinent intercourse with Delilah, by the loss of his power: 
" The Lord departed from him, and he did grieve in the 
prison house." We must guard with a jealous eye the spir- 
ituality and purity of the Church of Christ — "the bride, the 
Lamb's w^ife.' Some attempts have been made to abolish 
the distinction between the Church and the congregation, 
and it has been maintained that the mere desire to join the 
Church is sufficient without the ordinary tests of spiritual 
life. But " we have no such custom." The spiritual dis- 
tinction between believers and unbelievers must be main- 
tained; and to the utmost of our ability we must guard the 
Church against corruption and constant feebleness, by re- 
quiring in those who seek admission to its fellowship evi- 
dence of their being " new creatures in Christ Jesus." We 



OUR CHURCH. 177 

have our faults — not a few — and we are often told that one 
is an undue glorification of ourselves. For all of them we 
implore divine forgiveness ; but we trust we shall never be 
able to lay it to our charge that we have done aught to lower 
the standard of Christian life, or to erase any of the dis- 
tinctive marks which must ever define the Church in its 
separation from the world. — Rev. J. Baxandale. 



THE SHINING CHURCH. 

"?JHE Church illuminates the world by a manifesta- 

^ tion of its piety. Its power to fulfil this, its 

most peculiar and essential function, may be 

measured by the faith, zeal, and holiness of its 

members. 

A church may be what the world calls strong in 
point of members and influence. A church may be 
made up of men of wealth, men of intellect, men of power, 
high-born men, and men of rank and fashion, and being so 
composed, may be in a worldly sense a very strong church. 
There are many things that such a church can do. It can 
launch ships and endow seminaries. It can diffuse intelli- 
gence, can uphold the cause of benevolence, can maintain an 
imposing array of forms and religious activities. It can 
build splendid temples, can rear a magnificent pile and adorn 
its front with sculptures, and lay stone upon stone, and heap 
ornament upon ornament, till the costliness of the ministra- 
tions at the altar shall keep any poor man from ever enter- 
ing the portal. But I will tell you one thing that it cannot 
do — it cannot sJiine. It may glitter and blaze like an ice- 
berg in the sun, but without inward holiness it cannot shine. 

12 




178 OUR CHURCH. 

Of all that is formal and material in Christianity it may 
make a splendid manifestation, but it cannot shine. 

It may turn almost everything into gold at its touch, but 
it cannot touch the heart. It may lift up its marble front, 
and pile tower upon tower, and mountain upon mountain, 
but it cannot touch the mountain, and they shall smoke; it 
cannot conquer souls for Christ; it cannot awaken the sym- 
pathies of faith and love ; it cannot do Christ's work in 
man's conversion. It is dark in itself, and cannot diffuse 
light. It is cold at heart, and has no overflowing and sub- 
duing influences to pour out upon the lost. And with all its 
strength, that church is weak, and for Christ's peculiar work, 
worthless. And with all its glitter of gorgeous array, it is a 
dark church — it cannot shine. 

On the contrary, show me a church poor, illiterate, ob- 
scure, unknown, but composed of praying people; they may 
be men of neither power, nor w^ealth, nor influence ; they 
may be families that do not know one week where they are 
to get their bread for the next ; but with them is the kind- 
ling of God's power, and their influence is felt for eternity, 
and their light shines, and is watched, and wherever they go 
there is a fountain of light, and Christ in them is glorified, 
and his cause advanced. — Stephen Olin. 



God's house is not the place to make aching heads, it is 
the place to heal aching hearts. The most outrageous non- 
sense that is current in theological seminaries is that which 
deludes young men into the folly of aiming at profound and 

philosophic treatises for the pulpit. 

—T.L, Cuyler. 




OUR CHURCH, 179 



A GLORIOUS CHURCH. 

HRTST gave himself for the Church, ^* that he 
might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing 
^ of water by the word, that he might present it 
to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or 
wrinkle, or any such thing : but that it should be 
holy and without blemish." The Church is Christ's 
personal possession. He has bought it, and built it, and 
inhabits it. He has given himself for it, and he has desig- 
nated the Church as his own special heritage. It is not to 
be the possession of any man or any class of men ; it is not 
to be controlled by ecclesiastics or ruled by magistrates; 
there are no lords over God's heritage ; one Lord alone claims 
the allegiance of the Church ; and it is the purpose of Christ 
to "present it to liimself, a glorious church," as his eternal 
heritage. 

Christ's Church will be glorious at the end. There is one 
glory of the sun, another glory of the moon ; but there are 
moral glories which eclipse all material splendors. Christ's 
Church will be glorious in its moral excellence, and glorious 
in its visible and physical manifestations. But it must first 
be purged from every spot and stain. He gave himself for 
the Church that he might wash it and cleanse it. His peo- 
ple are washed from their sins in his own blood ; and by 
his Spirit and his Word they are sanctified, purged — fitted 
for his service and his presence. 

The redeemed Church will be without spot. How differ- 
ent from those bodies which call themselves churches in the 
world. How many of them are spotted by worldliness and 



180 OUR CHURCH. 

stained by vice ! Evil habits insinuate themselves among 
them; wicked men creep in unawares, who are spots in their 
feasts of charity, feeding themselves without fear; dishon- 
esty, fraud, craft, and worldly guile, ambition, self-seeking, 
frivolity, vanity, and pride, luxury, idleness, contempt of the 
poor, love of human praise and worldly pomp and show — 
all these things are spots and stains upon the Church. 
There are spots which are visible to the outside world, and 
which make the Church the scoif and scorn of the ungodly; 
there are spots which the Church herself beholds with tear- 
ful eyes; but what must be the aspect of the Church in the 
sight of Him whose eyes are as a flame of fire, who reads 
every thought, and who searches the hearts and tries the 
reins ? 

A Church that is glorious in her own eyes may be vile in 
the eyes of the all-seeing Lord. Such was the Church of 
Laodicea : rich, prosperous, and contented, but in the sight 
of the Lord loathesome and defiled. But Christ is to present 
unto himself a glorious Church. He will at last be satisfied 
with his redeemed people. The last spot removed, the last 
stain purged, the Church redeemed, purified, glorified, to 
stand faultless in the presence of her King, robed in his own 
righteousness, crowned with his own glory, without fault, 
before the throne of God. 

Are we included in that spotless Churcb? or are we 
spotted and defiled, that we should be rejected and cast out 
from that glorious fellowship ? Let us lay our hearts bare 
before the Lord, and so seek to know his mind and to do 
his will concerning us, that we shall stand at last accepted 
in the presence of his glory, faultless, and with exceeding 
j oy . — The Christian, 




CUR CHURCH, 281 



HISTORY OF THE PRIMITIVE CHRIS- 
TIANS; THE PURITY OF THEIR LIVES. 

HRISTIANITY offered itself to the world armed 
with the strength of the Mosaic law and deliv- 
^-»r^ ered from the weight of its fetters. An exclusive 
^^ zeal for the truth of religion and the unity of 
God was as carefully inculcated in the new as in 
the ancient system, and whatever was now revealed to 
mankind concerning the nature and designs of the Su- 
preme Being was fitted to increase their reverence for that 
mysterious doctrine. • The divine authority of Moses and 
the prophets was admitted and even established as the firm- 
est basis of Christianity. The ceremonial law, which con- 
sisted only of types and figures, was succeeded by a pure and 
spiritual worship, equally adapted to all climates as w^ell as 
to every condition of mankind; and for the initiation of blopd 
was substituted a more harmless initiation of water. The 
promise of divine favor, instead of being partially confined 
to the posterity of Abraham, w^as universally proposed to the 
free man and the slave, to the Greek and to the barbarian, 
to the Jew and to the Gentile. Every privilege that could 
raise the proselyte from earth to heaven, that could exalt his 
devotion, secure his happiness, or even gratify that secret 
pride which, under the semblance of devotion, insinuates 
itself into the human heart, was still reserved. for the mem- 
bers of the Christian Church, but at the same time all man- 
kind was permitted and even solicited to accept the glorious 
distinction which was not only proffered as a favor but im- 
posed as an obligation. It became the most sacred duty of a 



182 ovR CHURcn. 

new convert to diffuse among his friends and relations the 
inestimable blessing which he had received, and to warn 
them against a refusal, that would be severely punished as a 
criminal disobedience to the will of a benevolent but all- 
powerful Deity. 

Whatever difference of opinion might subsist between the 
orthodox, the Ebionites and the Gnostics concerning the 
divinity or the obligation of the Mosaic law, they were all 
equally animated by the same exclusive zeal and by the 
same abhorrence for idolatry which had distinguished the 
Jews from the other nations of the ancient world. The 
philosopher who considered the system of polytheism as a 
composition of human fraud and error could disguise a smile 
of contempt under the mask of devotion without appre- 
hending that either the mockery or the compliance would 
expose him to the resentment of any invisible, or, as he con- 
ceived them, imaginary powers. But the established re- 
ligions of paganism were seen by the primitive Christians in 
a much more odious and formidable light. It was the uni- 
versal sentiment both of the Church and of heretics that the 
demons were the authors, the patrons and the objects of 
idolatry. Those rebellious spirits who had been degraded 
from the ranks of angels and cast down into the infernal pit 
were still permitted ~ to roam upon earth to torment the 
bodies and to seduce the minds of sinful men. The demons 
soon discovered and abused the natural propensity of the 
human heart toward devotion, and, artfully withdrawing the 
adoration of mankind from their Creator, they usurped the 
place and honors of the Supreme Deity. By the success of 
their malicious contrivances they at once gratified their own 
vanity and revenge and obtained the only comfort of which 
they were yet susceptible — the hope involving the human 



OUR CHURCH, 183 

species in the participation of their guilt and misery. It 
was confessed, or, at least, it was imagined, that they had 
distributed among themselves the important characters of 
polytheism, one demon assuming the name and attributes 
of Jupiter, another of the .^sculapius, a third of Venus and 
a fourth, perhaps, of Apollo, and that by the advantage of 
their long experience and aerial nature they were enabled 
to execute with sufficient skill and dignity the parts which 
they had undertaken. They lurked in the temples, insti- 
tuted festivals and sacrifices, invented fables, pronounced 
oracles and were frequently allowed to perform miracles. 
The Christians who by interposition of evil spirits could so 
readily explain every preternatural appearance, were dis- 
posed and even desirous to admit the most extravagant fic- 
tions of the pagan mythology. But the belief of the Chris- 
tian was accompanied with horror. The most trifling mark 
of respect to the national worship he considered as a direct 
homage yielded to the demon and as an act of rebellion 
against the majesty of God. In consequence of this opinion 
it was the first duty of a Christian to preserve himself 
pure and undefiled from the practice of idolatry. The re- 
ligion of the nations was not merely a speculative doctrine 
professed in the schools or preached in the temples. The 
innumerable deities and rites of polytheism were closely in- 
terwoven with every circumstance of business or pleasure, of 
public or of private life, and it seemed impossible to escape 
the observance of them without at the same time renouncing 
the commerce of mankind and all the offices and amuse- 
ments of society. The important transactions of peace and 
war were prepared or concluded by solemn sacrifices, in which 
the magistrate, the senator and the soldier were obliged 
to preside or to participate. The public spectacles were 



184 OUR CHUECH, 

an essential part of the cheerful devotion of the pagans, 
and the gods were supposed to accept as the most grateful 
offering the games that the prince and people celebrated in 
honor of their peculiar festivals. The Christian who with 
pious horror avoided the abomination of the circus or the 
theatre found himself encompassed with infernal snares in 
every convivial entertainment ; as often as his friends, in- 
yoking the hospitable deities, poured out libations to each 
other s happiness ; when the bride, struggling with well-af- 
fected reluctance, was forced in hymeneal pomp over the 
threshold of her new habitation, or when the sad procession 
of the dead slowly moved towards the funeral pile. The 
Christian on these interesting occasions was compelled to 
desert the persons who were the dearest to him rather than 
contract the guilt inherent to those impious ceremonies. 
Every art and every trade that was in the least concerned in 
the framing or adorning of idols was polluted by the stain 
of idolatry. A severe sentence, since it devoted to eternal 
misery the far greater part of the community which is em- 
ployed in the exercise of liberal or mechanic professions. 
If we cast our eyes over the numerous remains of antiquity 
we shall perceive that besides the immediate representations 
of the gods and the holy instruments of their worship, the 
elegant forms and agreeable fictions consecrated by the 
imagination of the Greeks were introduced as the richest 
ornaments of the houses, the dress and the furniture of the 
pagan. Even the arts of music and painting, of eloquence 
and poetry, flowed from the same impure origin. In the 
style of the fathers, Apollo and the muses were the organs 
of the infernal spirit. Homer and Virgil were the most emi- 
nent of his servants, and the beautiful mythology v/hich 
pervades and animates the composition of their genius is 



OUR CRURCH. Ig5 

destined to celebrate the glory of the demons. Even the 
common language of Greece and Rome abounded with 
familiar but impious expressions which the imprudent Chris- 
tian might too carelessly utter or too patiently hear. The 
dangerous temptations which on every side lurked in am- 
bush to surprise the unguarded believer assailed him with 
redoubled violence on the days of solemn festivals. So art- 
fully were they framed and disposed throughout the year 
that superstition always wore the appearance of pleasure 
and often of virtue. Some of the most sacred festivals in 
the Roman ritual were destined to salute the new calends of 
January with vows of public and private felicity, to indulge 
the pious remembrance of the dead and living, to ascertain 
the inviolable bounds of property, to hail on the return of 
spring the genial powers of fecundity, to perpetuate the two 
memorable eras of Rome, the foundation of the city and 
that of the republic, and to restore during the human license 
of the Saturnalia the primitive equality of mankind. 

Some idea may be conceived of the abhorrence of the 
Christian for such impious ceremonies by the scrupulous 
delicacy which they displayed on a much less alarming 
occasion. On days of general festivity it was the custom 
of the ancients to adorn their doors with lamps and with 
branches of laurel, and to crown their heads with a garland 
of flowers. This innocent and elegant practice might per- 
haps have been tolerated as a mere civil institution, but it 
most unluckily happened that the doors were under the pro- 
tection of the household gods ; that the laurel was sacred to 
the lover of Daphne, and that garlands of flowers, though 
frequently worn as a symbol of joy or mourning, had been 
dedicated in their first origin to the service of superstition. 
The trembling Christians who w^ere persuaded in this 



Igg OUR CHURCH. 

instance to comply with the fashion of their country and 
the commands of the magistrate, labored under the most 
gloomy apprehensions from the reproaches of their own con- 
science, the censures of the Church, and denunciations of 
divine vengeance. Such was the anxious diligence which 
was required to guard the chastity of the Gospel from the 
infectious breath of idolatry. The superstitious observances 
of public or private rites were carelesslj^ practised from 
education and habit by the followers of the established 
religion, but as often as they occurred they afforded the 
Christians an opportunity of declaring and confirming their 
zealous opposition. By these frequent protestations their 
attachment to the faith was continually fortified, and in pro- 
portion to the increase of zeal they combated with the 
more ardor and success in the holy war, which they had 
undertaken against the empire of the demons. The writ- 
ings of Cicero represent in the most lively colors the ignor- 
ance, the errors and the uncertainty of the ancient phi- 
losophers with regard to the immortality of the soul. When 
they are desirous of arming their disciples against the fear 
of death, they inculcate as an obvious, though melancholy 
position, that the fatal stroke of our dissolution releases us 
from the calamities of life, and that those can no longer 
exist. Yet there were a few sages of Greece and Rome who 
had conceived a more exalted, and, in some respects, a 
juster idea of human nature, though it must be confessed 
that in the sublime inquiry their reason had been often 
guided by their imagination ; had been prompted by their 
vanity. When they viewed with complacency the extent 
of their own mental powers; when they exercised the 
various faculties of memory, of fancy and of judgment in 
the most profound speculation or the most important labors. 



UR CHURCH, 187 

and when they reflected on the desire of fame which trans- 
ported them into future ages, far beyond the bounds of death 
and of the grave, they were unwilling to confound themselves 
with the beast of the field, or to suppose that a being for 
whose dignity they entertained the most sincere admiration 
could be limited to a spot of earth, and to a few years of 
duration. With this favorable prepossession they sum- 
moned to their aid the science, or, rather, the language of 
Metaphysics. They soon discovered that as none of the 
properties of matter will apply to the operations of the 
mind, the human soul must consequently be a substance 
distinct from the body, pure, simple and spiritual, incapable 
of dissolution, and susceptible of a much higher degree of 
virtue and happiness after the release from its corporeal 
pfirison. From these specious and noble principles the phi- 
losophers, who had trod in the footsteps of Plato, deduced a 
very unjustifiable conclusion, since they asserted, not only 
the future immortality, but the past eternity of the human 
soul, which they were too apt to consider as a portion of the 
infinite and self-existing spirit which pervades and sustains 
the universe. A doctrine thus removed beyond the senses 
and the experience of mankind might serve to amuse the 
leisure of a philosophic mind, or in the silence of solitude it 
might sometimes impart a ray of comfort to desponding 
virtue, but the faint impression which had been received in 
the schools was soon obliterated by the commerce and busi- 
ness of active life. We are sufficiently acquainted with the 
eminent persons who flourished in the age of Cicero, and of the 
first Caesars, w^ith their actions, their characters and their 
motives, to be assured that their conduct in this life was 
never regulated by any serious conviction of the rewards or 
punishments of a future state. At the bar and in the 



188 OUR CHURCH, 

Senate of Rome, the ablest orators were not apprehensive of 
giving offence to their hearers, by exposing that as an 
idle and extravagant opinion, which was rejected with 
contempt by every man of a liberal education and under- 
standing. 

Since, therefore, the most sublime efforts of philosophy can 
extend no farther than feebly to point out the desire, the 
hope, or at most the probability of a future state, there is 
nothing except a divine revelation that can ascertain the ex- 
istence and describe the condition of the invisible country 
which is destined to receive the souls of men after their sep- 
aration from the body. But we may perceive several defects 
inherent to the popular religions of Greece and Rome which 
rendered them very unequal to so arduous a task. The 
general system of their mythology was unsupported by any 
solid proofs, and the wisest among the pagans had already 
disclaimed its usurped authority. The description of the in- 
fernal regions had been abandoned to the fancy of painters 
and of poets, who peopled them with so many phantoms and 
monsters who dispensed their rewards and punishments with 
so little equity that solemn truth, the most congenial to the 
human heart, was opposed and disgraced by the absurd mix- 
ture of the wildest fictions. The doctrine of a future 
state was scarcely considered among the devout polytheists 
of Greece and Rome as a fundamental article of faith-. The 
providence of the gods, as it related to public communities 
rather than to private individuals, was principally displayed 
on the visible theatre of the present world. The petitions 
which were offered on the altars of Jupiter and Apollo ex- 
pressed the anxiety of their worshippers for temporal hap- 
piness, and their ignorance or indifference concerning a 
future life. The important truth of the immortality of the 



OUR CHURCH. 189 

soul was inculcated with more diligence as well as success 
in India, in Assyria, in Egypt, and in Gaul, and since we 
cannot attribute such a difference to the superior knowledge 
of the barbarians, we must ascribe it to the influence of an 
established priesthood which employed the motives of virtue 
as the instrument of ambition. We might naturally ex- 
pect that a principle so essential to religion would have been 
revealed in the clearest terms to the chosen people of Pales- 
tine, and that it might safely have been intrusted to the 
hereditary priesthood of Aaron. It is incumbent on us to 
adore the mysterious dispensations of Providence when we 
discover that the doctrine of the immortality of the soul is 
omitted in the law of Moses. It is darkly insinuated by the 
prophets, and during the long period which elapsed between 
the Egyptian and Babylonian servitudes the hopes as well as 
fears of the Jews appear to have been confined within the 
narrow compass of the present life. After Cyrus had per- 
mitted the exiled nation to return into the Promised Land, 
and after Ezra had restored the ancient records of their re- 
ligion, two celebrated sects, the Sadducees and the Pharisees, 
insensibly arose at Jerusalem. The former, selected from 
the more opulent and distinguished ranks of society, were 
strictly attached to the literal sense of the Mosaic law, and 
they piously rejected the immortality of the soul as an opin- 
ion that received no countenance from the divine book which 
they revered as the only rule of their faith. To the author- 
ity of Scripture the Pharisees added that of tradition, and 
they accepted under the name of traditions several specula- 
tive tenets from the philosophy or religion of the Eastern 
nations. The doctrines of fate or predestination of angels 
and spirits and of a future state of rewards and punishments 
were in the number of these new articles of belief, and as 



190 ^^^ CHUMCH, 

the Pharisees, by the austerity of their manners, had drawn 
into their party the body of the Jewish people, the immor- 
tality of the soul became the prevailing sentiment of the 
synagogue under the reign of the Asmonean princes and 
pontiffs. The temper of the Jews was incapable of content- 
ing itself with such a cold and languid assent as might sat- 
isfy the mind of a polytheist, and as soon as they admitted 
the idea of a future state they embraced it with the zeal 
which has always formed the characteristic of the nation. 
Their zeal, however, added nothing to its evidence, or even 
probability, and it was still necessary that the doctrine of 
life and immortality, which had been dictated by nature, ap- 
proved by reason and received by superstition, should obtain 
the sanction of divine truth from the authority and example 
of Christ. When the promise of eternal happiness was pro- 
posed to mankind on condition of adopting the faith and of 
observing the precepts of the Gospel, it is no wonder that so 
advantageous an offer should have been accepted by great 
numbers of every religion, of every rank, and of every prov- 
ince in the Roman Empire. The ancient Christians were 
animated by a contempt for their present existence and by 
a just confidence of immortality, of which the doubtful and 
imperfect faith of modern ages cannot give us any adequate 
notion. In the primitive Church the influence of truth was 
very powerfully strengthened by an opinion which, however 
it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, has 
not been found agreeable to experience. It was universally 
believed that the end of the world and the kingdom of 
heaven were at hand. The near approach of this wonderful 
event had been predicted by the apostles, the tradition of it 
was preserved by their earliest disciples, and those who un- 
derstood in their literal senses the discourse of Christ him- 



OUR CHURCH. 191 

self, were obliged to expect the second and glorious coming 
of the Son of man in the clouds before that generation was 
totally extinguished which had beheld his humble condition 
upon earth, and which might still be witness of the calami- 
ties of the Jews under Yespasian or Hadrian. 

The revolution of seventeen centuries has instructed us 
not to press too closely the mysterious language of prophecy 
and revelation, but as long as for wise purposes this error 
was permitted to subsist in the Church it was productive of 
the most salutary effects on the faith and practice of Chris- 
tians, who lived in the awful expectation of that moment 
when the globe itself and all the various races of mankind 
should tremble at the appearance of their Judge. The prim- 
itive Christian demonstrated his faith by his virtues, and it 
was very justly supposed that the divine persuasion which 
enlightened or subdued the understanding must at* the same 
time purify the heart and direct the actions of the believer. 
The first apologists of Christianity who justify the innocence 
of their brethren and the writers of a later period who cele- 
brate the sanctity of their ancestors, display in the most lively 
colors the reformation of manners which was introduced into 
the world by the preaching of the Gospel. As it is my in- 
tention to remark only such human causes as were permitted 
to second the influence of revelation, I shall slightly mention 
two motives which might naturally render the lives of the 
primitive Christians much purer and more austere than those 
of their pagan contemporaries, or their degenerate succes- 
sors — repentance for their past sins and the laudable desire 
of supporting the reputation of the society in which they 
were engaged. It is a very ancient reproach suggested by 
the ignorance or the malice of infidelity that the Christians 
allured into their party the most atrocious criminals who, as 



192 OUE CHURCH. 

soon as they were touched by a sense of remorse, were easily 
persuaded to wash away in the water of baptism the guilt 
of their past conduct for which the temples of the gods re- 
fused to grant them any expiation. But this reproach, when 
it is cleared from misrepresentation, contributes as much to 
the honor as it did to the increase of the Church. The 
friends of Christianity may acknowledge without a blush 
that many of the most eminent saints had been before 
their baptism the most abandoned sinners. Those persons 
who in the world had followed, though in an imperfect 
manner, the dictates of benevolence and propriety, derived 
such a calm satisfaction from the opinion of their own recti- 
tude as rendered them much less susceptible of the sudden 
emotions of shame or grief and of terror which have given 
birth to so many wonderful conversions. After the example 
of their divine Master, the missionaries of the Gospel dis- 
dained not the society of men, and especially of women, op- 
pressed by the consciousness and very often by the effects 
of their vices. As they emerged from sin and superstition 
to the glorious hope of immortality, they resolved to devote 
themselves to a life not only of virtue but of penitence. 
The desire of perfection became the ruling passion of their 
soul, and it is well known that while reason embraces a cold 
mediocrity, our passions hurry us with rapid violence over 
the space which lies between the most opposite extremes. 
When the new converts had been enrolled in the number of 
the faithful and were admitted to the sacraments of the 
Church they found themselves restrained from relapsing into 
their past disorders by another consideration, of a less spir- 
itual but of a very innocent and respectable nature. Any 
particular society that has departed from the great body of 
the nation, or the religion to which it belonged, immediately 



OUR CHURCH,' 193 

becomes the object of universal as well as invidious observa- 
tion. In proportion to the smallness of its numbers, the 
character of the society may be affected by the virtues and 
vices of the persons who compose it, and every member is 
engaged to watch with the most vigilant attention over his 
own behavior and over that of his brethren, since as he must 
expect to incur a part of the common disgrace he may hope 
to enjoy a share of the common reputation. When the 
Christians of Bittrynia were brought before the tribunal of 
the younger Pliny, they assured the proconsul that far from 
being engaged in any unlawful conspiracy they were bound 
by a solemn obligation to abstain from the commission of 
those crimes which disturb the private or public peace of 
society from theft, robbery, adultery, perjury and fraud. 
Near a century afterward TertuUian with an honest pride 
could boast that very few Christians had suffered by the 
hand of the executioner except on account of their religion. 
Their serious and sequestered life, averse to the gay 
luxury of the age, inured them to chastity, temperance, 
economy and all the sober and domestic virtues. As the 
greater number were of some trade or profession it was in- 
cumbent on them by the strictest integrity and the fairest 
dealing to remove the suspicions which the profane are too 
apt to conceive against the appearances of sanctity. The 
contempt of the world exercised them in the habits of hu- 
mility, meekness and patience. The more they were perse- 
cuted the more closely they adhered to each other. Their 
mutual charity and unsuspecting confidence has been re- 
marked by infidels and was too often abused by perfidious 
friends. It is a very honorable circumstance for the morals 
of the primitive Christians that even their faults or rather 
errors were derived from an excess of virtue. The bishops 

13 



194 OUR CHURCH. 

and doctors of the Church, whose evidence attests and whose 
authority might influence the professions, the principles and 
even the practice of their contemporaries, had studied the 
Scriptures with less skill than devotion, and they often re- 
ceived in the most literal sense those rigid precepts of Christ 
and the apostles to which the prudence of succeeding com- 
mentators has applied a looser and more figurative mode of 
interpretation. Ambitious to exalt the perfection of the 
Gospel above the wisdom of philosophy, the zealous fathers 
have carried the duties of self-mortification, of purity and 
of patience to a height which it is scarcely possible to attain 
and much less to preserve in our present state of weakness 
and corruption. A doctrine so extraordinary and so sublime 
must inevitably command the veneration of the people, but 
it was ill calculated to obtain the suffrage of those worldly 
philosophers who, in the conduct of this transitory life, con- 
sult only the feelings of nature and the interest of society. 

— Edward Gihhon. 



THE CHURCH STILL UNFLINCHINQ. 

^iT^^TrHE Church of Christ, if called to pass again 
v>m3(II/v^ through the age of martyrdom, would, I believe. 



'tyrd( 
y^ be as unflinching in maintaining the truth, or in 
sealing her testimony in blood, as in the days of 
Ridley and Latimer, or in the earlier age of Perpetua 
and Felicita, when rich and poor, bond and free, were 
one in a common loyalty to the truth and in pouring out 
their blood in its defence. — Bishop Hurst. 




OUR CHUBCH. 195 



THE CHURCH STRENGTHENED BY 
PERSECUTION. 

tHEEE are other things besides the sturdy oak which 
the roaring tempest nurses into strength. The 
storms that strip the tree of some leaves, perhaps of 
some rotten branches, but moor it deeper in the rifts of ever- 
lasting rock. Christ's words cannot fail: On this rock have 
I built my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail 
against it. — Bev, Thomas Outhrie. 



LOVE FOR THE CHURCH. 



^^^ 



LOVE thy kingdom, Lord, 

The house of thine abode, 
The Church our blest Redeemer saved 

With his own precious blood. 



I love thy Church, O God ! 

Her walls before thee stand. 
Dear as the apple of thine eye, 

And graven on thy hand. 

For her ray tears shall fall, 
For her my prayers ascend, 

To her my cares and toils be given, 
Till toils and cares shall end. 

Beyond my highest joy 
I prize her heavenly ways. 

Her sweet communion, solemn vows, 
And hymns of love and praise. 



196 OUR CHURCH. 



Sure as thy truth shall last. 

To Zion shall be given 
The brightest glories earth can yieW, 

And brighter bliss of heaven. 

— Timothy DwigKt 



THE CHURCH INDISPENSABLE. 

» 

F all the dispositions and habits which lead to 
political prosperity, religion and morality are in- 
dispensable supports. In vain would that man 
claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to 
subvert these great pillars of human happiness — 
these foremost props of the duties of men and citizens. 
The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought 
to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace 
all their connection with private and public felicity. Let it 
be simply asked, where is the security for property, for reputa- 
tion, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the 
oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of 
justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition 
that morality can be maintained without religion. What- 
ever may be conceded to the influence of refined education 
on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both 
forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in 
exclusion of religious principles. — -George Washington, 




Christianity came into the world with a cross in one 
hand and a crown in the other — the one bending earthward, 
marked " Present," and the other flashing skyward, marked 
" Future."— JSev. Tf . G. Richards. 



OUR CHURCH. 



197 



THE CHURCH THE MOTHER OF ALL 

GOOD. 

PAUL carried in his own person across the 
^^^ ^gean Sea to Europe the printing-press, the tele- 
^J^ scope, the cotton gin, the power loom, the modern 
plow, the steam engine, the microscope, the mag- 
netic telegraph, railroads, Kepler, Sir Isaac Newton, 
the Herschels, Christopher Columbus and America. 

— Bishop Marvin, 



THE AVORLD WITHOUT THE 
CHURCH. 

Reflect what kind of a w^orld this was when the 



disciples of Christ undertook to reform it, and 
compare it with the condition in which their 
teachings have put it. In its mighty metropolis, 
the centre of its intellectual and political power, 
the best men were addicted to vices so debasing that I 
could not even allude to them without soiling the paper 
I write upon. All manner of unprincipled wickedness w^as 
practised in the private life of the whole population without 
concealment or shame, and the magistrates were thoroughly 
and universally corrupt. Benevolence in any shape w^as al- 
together unknown. The helpless and the weak got neither 
justice nor mercy. There was no relief for the poor, no suc- 
cor for the sick, no refuge for the unfortunate. In all pagan- 
dom there was not a hospital, asylum, alms-house, or organ- 
ized charity of any sort. The indifference to human life was 




198 ^^^ CHURCH 

literallj frightful. The order of a successful man to assas- 
sinate his opponents was always obeyed by his followers with 
the utmost alacrity and pleasure. It was a special amuse- 
ment of the populace to witness the shows at which men 
were compelled to kill one another, to be torn in pieces by 
wild beasts, or otherwise " butchered to make a Roman 
holiday.'' In every province paganism enacted the same 
cold-blooded cruelties; oppression and robbery ruled su- 
preme ; murder went rampaging and red over all the earth. 
The Church came, and her light penetrated this darkness 
like a new sun. She covered the globe with institutions of 
mercy, and thousands upon thousands of her disciples devoted 
themselves exclusively to works of charity at the sacrifice of 
every earthly interest. Her earliest adherents were killed 
without remorse — beheaded, crucified, sawn asunder, thrown 
to the beasts, or covered with pitch, piled up in great heaps, 
and slowly burned to death. But her faith was made per- 
fect through suffering, and the law of love rose in triumph 
from the ashes of her martyrs. This religion has come 
down to us through the ages, attended all the way by right- 
eousness, temperance, mercy, transparent truthfulness, exult- 
ing hope and white-winged charity. Never was its influence 
for good more plainly perceptible than now. It has not con- 
verted, purified, and reformed all men, for its first principle 
is the freedom of the human will, and there are those who 
choose to reject it. But to the mass of mankind, directly 
and indirectly, it has brought uncounted benefits and bless- 
ings. Abolish it — take away the restraints which it im- 
poses on evil passions ; silence the admonitions of its preach- 
ers; let all Christians cease their labors of charity; blot out 
from history the record of its heroic benevolence ; repeal the 
laws it has enacted and the institutions it has built up ; let 



OUR CHURCH, 199 

its moral principles be abandoned and all its miracles of light 
be extino:uished — what would we come to ? I need not an- 
swer ; the experiment has been partially tried. The French 
nation formally renounced Christianity, denied the existence 
of the Supreme Being, and so satisfied the liunger of the in- 
fidel heart for a time. What followed ? Universal deprav- 
ity, garments rolled in blood, fantastic crimes, unimagined 
before, which startled the earth with their sublime atrocity. 
People have, and ought to have, no special desire to follow 
that terrible example of guilt and misery. — Judge Black, 



OBJECT OF THE CHURCH. 

HE Church was built to disturb the peace of man ; but 
often it does not perform its duty, for fear of disturb- 
ing the peace of the Church. What kind of artillery- 
practice would that be which declined to fire for fear of 
kicking over the gun-carriages, or waking up the sentinels 
asleep at their post ? — H, W. Beecher. 



BUSINESS OF THE CHURCH. 

tT is the business of the Church to echo God. Any 
church which does this will be heard around the world. 
Not the man for the times, but the Church for the times, is 
the proper rallying cry of reform. No one man will ever 
save the f/orld. A combination of aggressive, omnipresent 
churches may. — Joseph Gooh, 



200 ^^^ CHURCH, 



AA^HAT THE CHURCH MUST DO. 

HE Church must grope her way into the alleys 
^X and courts and purlieus of the city, and up the 




broken staircases, and into the bare room, and 
beside the loathsome sufferer; she must go down 
into the pit with the miner, into the forecastle with 
the sailor, into the tent with the soldier, into the shop 
with the mechanic, into the factory with the operative, 
into the field with the farmer, into the counting-room with 
the merchant. Like the air, the Church must press equally 
upon all the surfaces of society ; like the sea, flow into every 
nook of the shore line of humanity; and like the sun, shine 
on things foul and low as well as fair and high; for she 
was organized, commissioned and equipped for the moral 
reformation of the whole world. — Bishop Simpson. 



THE SPECIFIC V^^ORK OF THE 
CHURCH. 

HE specific work of the Church of God is the 
work of proclaiming the gospel, saving sinners 
^ and building up saints in the most holy faith. 
When they address-themselves to this work God 
blesses and prospers them in their endeavors. 
When they turn aside to other pursuits they find them- 
selves involved in difficulties. The Church \)f God is 
not a trading corporation, organized for the purpose of holding 
fairs and bazaars and dealing in knick-knacks and fancy 




OUR CHURCH. 201 

goodsj thus entering into a damaging competition with legiti- 
mate traders and spending infinite labor for infinitessimal 
gains. In matters of merchandise no church can long com- 
pete with private individuals or commercial companies, and 
the success they achieve by levying contributions and call- 
ing persons from other duties to assist them may be apparent, 
but it is by no means permanent. 

Christians are not called to the business of furnishing 
amusements. There are places of amusement, and proprie- 
tors of theatres, play-houses and concert-rooms can out-do 
them in this field of endeavor. It is impossible for the 
Church, with her amateur theatricals and other modes of 
amusement, to compete with men whose lives and energies 
are devoted to catering to the public taste. Christians may 
degrade or disgrace themselves and cultivate an appetite for 
worldly amusements, which will allure their followers on to 
other and still more objectionable enjoyments, but they can- 
not succeed as pleasure-makers in the sharp competition 
which exists in the present day, when men are lovers of 
pleasure more than lovers of God. 

The Church of Christ is not an institution for the exhibi- 
tion t)f imposing architecture. They may waste their Lord's 
money and involve themselves in debts and embarrassments ; 
they may worship beneath the towering spires of mortgaged 
meeting-houses and tax themselves for generations to pay 
the expenses which their pride engenders, but when they 
have done all the world will distance them. They cannot 
build temples like those which ancient art dedicated to the 
basest idolatries, and their performances are mean and paltry 
compared with the grander structures of heathen antiquity 
which, conceived in the most artistic taste, were conjoined 
with the most beastly idolatries. 



202 OUR CHURCH. 

"Whatever enterprises the Church may undertake, whether 
educational, architectural, social or commercial, she will find 
herself at a disadvantage and be distanced in the race. But 
if she will keep to her work as a witness-bearer for the Lord 
of hosts; if she will testify of the gospel of God's grace 
and in lowliness and humility pursue the path appointed by 
the Lord, she will find in his presence her strength and in 
his smile her joy — a strength that is made perfect in weak- 
ness and a joy that no man can take away. Let the ener- 
gies that are devoted to secular pursuits and worldly devices 
be poured into the legitimate channels of Christian life and 
Christian labor, and the results will appear in the winning 
of sinners from the error of their ways and in the building 
up of the Church of Christ in their most holy faith. The 
day of eternity will show how light are all these earthly 
trifles compared with the glory of those who, having turned 
many to righteousness, " shall shine as the brightness of the 
firmament" and "as the stars for ever and ever." — The 
Common People. 



THE CHURCH SEEKS THE LOST. 

'0-DAY Christianity in her white robes stands 
upon the threshold of each great idolatry and of 
^ each idolatrous nation and tribe and knocks for 
^*^ admission, and, in spite of the devil, she will 
enter into the sanctuaries ^of earth's darkest idola- 
tries and preach Christ and him crucified, and before 
the calm splendor of Christ's gospel heathen gods will 
fall as Dagon fell before the ancient Shekinah of Jehovah's 
presence. — Eev. I. G. Bidivell. 





OUR CHURCH, 203 



THE CHURCH AGGRESSIVE. 

HE Christian Church is in principle and by divine 
authority missionary. Its life is one with the 
y> spirit of propagation, diffusion, aggression. No 
one can mistake this or fail to apprehend it as 
the genius of her founder and his apostles.- Lack- 
ing this, Christianity proves herself fallen from her 
high estate. She has that which every nation under 
the sun needs and which but herself can adequately supply. 
Her empire, by right, is a universal one, unrestricted by 
zones, races or governments. And to win to herself that 
which by right is hers she must be missionary. To all who 
have not what she has she is compelled to carry and offer 
her gifts. — Rev. Thomas Guard. 



\VHAT THE CHURCH HAS ACCOM- 
PLISHED. 

T expelled cruelty ; it curbed passion ; it branded 
suicide ; it punished and repressed an execrable 
infanticide ; it drove the shameless impurities 
of heathendom into a congenial darkness. There 
was hardly a class whose wrongs it did not remedy: 
^ it rescued the gladiator ; it freed the slave ; it protected 
' the captive; it nursed the sick; it sheltered the orphan; 
it elevated woman ; it shrouded with a halo of sacred inno- 
cence the tender years of the child. In every region of life 
its ameliorating influence was felt. It changed pity from a 




204 ^^^ CHUECB. 

•vice into a virtue -, it elevated poverty from a curse into a 
beatitude; it ennobled labor from a vulgarity into a dignity 
and a duty ; it sanctified marriage from little more than a 
burdensome convention into little less than a blessed sacra- 
ment. It revealed for the first time the angelic beauty and 
purity of which men had despaired, of meekness at which 
they utterly scoffed. It created the very conception of 
charity, and broadened the limits of its obligations from the 
narrow circle of a neighborhood to the widest horizons of the 
race. And while it thus involved the idea of humanity as 
a common brotherhood, even where its teachings were not 
believed — all over the world, wherever its tidings were be- 
lieved, it cleansed the life and elevated the soul of each 
individual man. And in all lands where it moulded the 
character of its true believers, it has created hearts so pure, 
and lives so peaceful, and homes so sweet, that it might seem 
as though those angels who had heralded its advent had also 
whispered to every despairing and depressed sufferer among 
the sons of men : " Though you have lain among the pots, 
yet shall ye be as the wings of a dove covered with silver, 
and her feathers with yellow gold." — Farrar. 

THE CHURCH A LEADER. 

HE time chosen for the advance of Israel into the 
promised land seemed singularly unpropitious. 
^ The spring rains had filled the Jordan with a 
rapid and dangerous flood. At this season of the 
year it cannot be forded ; swimming it is even a 
gerous feat. Bridges there were none ; the inhabi- 
tants on the other side rested for the time in absolute 
security. But the host was set in motion, wondering, doubt- 




OUR CHURCH, 205 

less, to what useful end. The priests led the way, bearing 
the Ark of the Covenant upon their shoulders ; the army 
followed at a little distance. No sooner had the soles of the 
priests' feet touched the swelling flood than the waters sud- 
denly opened a way for the host of Israel. " High up the 
river, far av/ay, in Adam, the city which is beside Zaretan, 
that is at a distance of thirty miles from the place of the 
Israelite encampment, the waters there stood which descended 
from the heights above — stood and rose up as if gathered into 
a waterskin ; as if in a barrier or heap ; as if congealed ; and 
those that descended toward the sea of the desert — the salt 
sea — fiiiled, and were cut off. Thus the scene presented is 
of the descending stream not parted asunder, as we generally 
fancy, but, as the Psalm expressed it, turned backwards; the 
whole bed of the river left dry from north to south, through 
its long windings ; the huge stones lying bare here and there, 
embedded in the soft bottom, or the shingly pebbles drifted 
along the course of the bottom. The Ark stood above ; the 
army passed below. The women and children, according to 
the Jewish traditions, were placed in the centre, from fear 
lest they should be swept away by the violence of the cur- 
rent. The host, at different points probably, rushed across. 
The priests remained motionless, their feet sunk in the deep 
mud of the channel." The rude monument, made of twelve 
stones taken from the bed of the Jordan, long remained on 
the bank at this spot to mark the locality, and to keep 
alive the memory of the passage. 

The fact that stands out in notable prominence in this 
narrative is the position of the Church, represented by the 
Ark and the priests, as a leader in this memorable passage. 
The Church was both vanguard and rearguard. The priests 
were first to enter the river valley ; not till their bare feet 



206 ^^^ CHURCH. 

were washed by the flood did it draw back ; and they were 
the last to leave the centre of the river-bed, after all else 
had passed over. The fact is typical. 

The Church has at some times, nay, often, resisted human 
progress ; but it has been only when she was degenerate 
and apostate. The true Church has always been the ad- 
vanced guard ; first to lead the way, bold to press forward, 
patient to wait. In the journeyings in the wilderness the 
Tabernacle was the leader of the host when in motion, and 
the centre and heart of the camp when at rest. When 
Christ was born the Jewish Church was given over wholly 
to traditionalism and ceremonialism ; but the new advance 
to a Christian civilization was inspired by Christ and led by 
Paul ; the Ark and the Church — the new Christian Church 
— went before, and humanity followed after. Throughout 
the Middle Ages the Church, with all its faults, with all its 
apostate endeavors to resist the irresistible progress of human 
thought, yet furnished the great thought-leaders. She gave 
literature its refuge and literati their resting-places. She 
furnished science with her pioneers and agriculture with her 
first advance from an ignorant drudgery to an intelligent 
industry. She educated Luther, and Copernicus, and Co- 
lumbus, and Ridley, and Latimer, and Tyndal, and William 
of Omnge, and Coligny, and Cromwell. It was her energy 
that founded the first successful colonies in New England. 
It was her voice in Whitefield and Wesley that first awoke 
the common people of England to that life whose nineteenth 
century fruits are household suffrage, a public-school system, 
and a national temperance movement. Her ships, sent out 
by a missionary church, have opened the ports where tardier 
commerce has followed. And the same Church to-day in our 
own land is planting the school, academy, college; and house 



OUR CHURCH. ' 207 

of worship alongside the station and the farmhouse in the 
far West. 

It is true that the Church has often resisted progress, 
sometimes with fire and sword; but it has itself furnished 
the antidotes to its own deathly content. The victors over 
its own torpor have been its own children. Paul was a Jew- 
ish Rabbi, and Luther a Roman Catholic monk. Infidelity 
has sometimes broken down obstacles, but it has pioneered 
no one; it has led nowhere. The leaders in scientific pro- 
gress have been the men who have taught that nature is the 
handiwork of God, and therefore to be studied as his book, 
bestowed upon man, and therefore to be used as his inheri- 
tance. Copernicus and Galileo were both faithful children of 
the Church. Liberty has been nurtured in her lap ; religious 
liberty has preceded civil ; belief in the equality of all men 
before God's judgment throne has prepared the way for 
belief in the equality of all men before earthly courts and 
thrones. Alfred the Great was a great king because he was 
a true believer ; he hewed out of the Bible the grand founda- 
tions of the British Constitution. The Franciscan friars 
were the educators of that Simon de Montfort, who was 
founder of the English Parliament. A Puritan conscience 
and a Puritan church won for England and for us the su- 
premacy of government of the people, by the people, for the 
people. In all ages the Church which has dreaded progress 
and resisted it has been a degenerate and apostate Church ; 
the Church which has led the very vanguard of thought and 
life has been the Church of the living God. To-day in Amer- 
ica the true Church is not the one which rests in cushioned 
pews, content with fields already occupied and victories al- 
ready won, but that which is pressing forward to occupy new 
fields and conquer in new battles. The Church never fulfils 



208 ^^^ CHURCH. 

its highest and noblest function except when its priests bear 
the ark of God in advance of humanity, and pioneer the 
way, that civilization, with all its accompaniments of liberty, 
education, and personal comfort, may follow. In every good 
word and work, in everything which tends to ameliorate the 
condition or improve the character of mankind, in every 
movement to enlarge the sphere or deepen the current of 
education, to give industry a large play and a better reward, 
to promote temperance, cleanliness, health, happiness, good 
government, in village, county. State or nation, the 
preacher, the teacher, the Christian, in a word the Church, 
should be in the front rank, leading the way, inspiring 
courage, inciting hope, strengthening purpose, elevating and 
clarifying faith, fearless of obstacles, confident in God, 
assured of victory. — Lyman Ahhott. 



THE CHURCH TO BE UNIVERSAL 

'^^^/^^^IKE Sion, the Church is, in one view, very small. 
Plindoos and Chinese speak of her as a low 
heresy, creeping about the mountains and 
marshes of Europe; and contrast her with their 
ancient and colossal establishments. Jews and Ma- 
hometans deride her, as cemented by the blood of him 
that was crucified. And in one sense they are right in 
so judging; in another, they are fearfully mistaken. Christi- 
anity is nothing, except that it is divine — nothing, except that 
it comes from heaven — nothing, except that it Is to cover the 
whole earth with its power and its praise. The arm of a 
prophet was just like any other human arm; it possessed 
precisely the same number of bones, sinews, muscles, and 




OUR CHURCH. 209 

veins. And yet, when raised to Leaven, when electrified from 
above, it could divide the sea, raise the dead, and bring down 
fire from the clouds. So the true Church of Christ is just 
an assemblage of simple, humble, sincere men — that is all ; 
but the Lord is on their side, and there we discern a source 
of energy, which shall yet shatter thrones, change the destiny 
of nations, and uplift, with resistless force, the mountain of 
the Lord's house above the mountains and above the hills. 

This despised and struggling Church shall yet become 
universal. "All nations shall flow unto it." Those wdio 
wander on the boundless steppes of Tartary, those who 
shiver amid the eternal ice of Greenland, those who inhabit 
Africa, that continent of thirst, those who bask in the lovely 
regions of the South Sea — all, all are to flow^ to the moun- 
tain of the Lord. They are to " flow," they are to come, not 
in drops, but with the rush and the thunder of mighty 
streams. " Nations are to be born in one day." A super- 
natural impulse is to be given to the Christian cause. Christ 
is again to be, as before, his own missionary. Blessed are 
the eyes which shall see this great gathering of the nations, 
and the ears which shall hear the sound thereof. Blessed 
above those born of woman, especially the devoted men, 
who, after laboring in the field of the world, shall be re- 
warded, and at the same time astonished, by finding its 
harvest home hastened, and the work which they had been 
pursuing, with strong crying and tears, done to their hands, 
done completely, and done from heaven. In this belief lies 
the hope and the help of the w^orld. But for a divine inter- 
vention we despair of the success of the good cause. Allow 
us this, and Christianity is sure of a triumph, as speedily as 
it shall be universal. On Sabbath, the 16th of May, 1836, 
we saw the sun seized, on the very apex of his glory, as if by 

14 



210 OUR CHUECIT, 

a black hand, and so darkened that only a thin round ring 
of light remained visible, and the chill of twilight came pre- 
maturely on. That mass of darkness within seemed the 
world lying in wickedness, and that thin round ring of light, 
the present progress of the Gospel in it. But not more cer- 
tain were we then, that that thin round ring of light was yet 
to become the broad and blazing sun, than are we now, that 
through a divine interposal, but not otherwise, shall the 
" knowledge of the glory of the Lord cover the earth as the 
waters the sea,''— George QilfiUan. 



ONENESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

^^^^^ CANNOT but hope that a fairer vision than ever 
yet has charmed the eyes of men has been re- 
served, in the wisdom and goodness of God, to 
illustrate our beloved Union. Union! That is 
the watchword ! Thank God for its meaning, its 
^^ music, and its power ! Union ! Civil and religious ; 
T the oneness of humanity, and the oneness of Christian- 
ity ! A religion worthy of our liberty! A religion 
that may be as much a light to the churches of the world as 
our liberty is to the states of the world ! If Canadians, 
Mexicans and South Americans ; if Irishmen, Englishmen, 
Welshmen and Scotchmen ; if Swedes, Danes and Norwe- 
gians ; if Portuguese, Spaniards and Frenchmen ; if Bel- 
gians, Hollanders and Germans; if Swiss, Italians, Poles, 
Hungarians, Russians and Greeks ; if even Turks and Arabs 
and Persians and Hindoos and Siamese and Chinese and 
Australians and Polynesians ; if, in a word, all the varieties of 
humanity — except the poor Africans, and even some of them 



O UR CR URCH, 211 

in some of our States — may be here assembled, and made, to 
all intents and purposes, civilly one, then, I ask, may not 
even Greek Catholics, if they should come among us, and 
Roman Catholics, here at least, if nowhere else, and Prot- 
estants from all the State Establishments, and Dissenting 
Protestants of all classes, and our own Independent Prot- 
estants of all parties — -in a word, may not all the varieties 
of Christianity be made ecclesiastically one ? If all the ob- 
structions of distance, danger, poverty, language, habit, 
manners and social customs have b:en overcome in the civil 
Union, may not the single obstruction of tradition be over- 
come for the accomplishment of the ecclesiastical union — a 
simple Christian union — a Holy Bible Union ? Here we are, 
by the good providence of God, one mighty brotherhood, 
gathered from all nations. Here we are, with the grandest 
seas of the globe tossing all their billows between our happy 
shores and the haughty tyrannies of the Old World. Here 
we are, as citizens, already one. Why not also be one as 
Christians? Have we not already thrown off a thousand 
political traditions ? And are we not equally at liberty to 
throw off all sectarian traditions? Then let us use our 
liberty. Away with the false authority of all divisive tra- 
ditions ! Away with this ecclesiastical opposition to the 
Bible ! The Bible belongs to all ! The Bible is acknowl- 
edged by all ! Let the Eible be obeyed, and it will unite all ! 
If, however, in this, as in the former case, it shall seem that 
there must be some exceptions, let us pity and pray for them. 
But let all who can come make haste to come. Let the 
union be consummated ! The tidings of it w^ill electrify the 
world ! Popery, like Lucifer, having ascended to the high- 
est heaven in all the pride of the Son of the Morning, shall 
suddenly drop into the deepest depth of mockery and scorn ! 



212 OVR CHURCH. 

Infidelity, like Satan, having covered itself with a cloud and 
slowly exalted its front against the throne of God, shall fall 
again like lightning to the marsh from which it rose 1 Pa- 
ganism, like Mania, worshipping it knows not what, shall be 
startled by the quickening voice of truth, and clasping her 
brow at the thrill of returning reason, shall stand before the 
Highest, illumined, enraptured, and restored I Judaism, 
weeping by the temple wall, shall hear strange news from 
the land where her children have never found cause to weep, 
and confess that Jesus is the Christ ! A second and more 
sacred national flas: shall attend the first in all its flights 
from pole to pole — a flag flashing with the stars of prophets 
and apostles, and glowing with the stripes of the Saviour's 
painful but blessed and beckoning atonement; and the 
United States of America, and the united churches of 
America, magnifying the Bible and the God of the Bible, 
and magnified in turn by the benediction of both, shall 
become and remain "the joy and the praise of the whole 
earth." — T. H. Stockton. 



SPREAD OF THE CHURCH. 

"^HE Banyan of the Indian isle 
^ Spreads deeply down its massive root, 
\^ And spreads its branching life abroad, 
And bends to earth with scarlet fruit ; 
But when the branches reach the ground. 

They firmly plant themselves again : 
They rise and spread and droop and root, 
An ever-green and endless chain. 

And so the Church of Jesus Christ, 
The blessed Banyan of our God, 




OUR CHURCH, 213 

Fast-rooted upon Zion's mount, 

Has sent its sheltering arms abroad ; 
And every branch that from it springs^ 

In sacred beauty spreading wide, 
As low it bends to bless the earth, 

Still plants another by its side. 

Long as the world itself shall last, 

The sacred Banyan still shall spread, 
From clime to clime, from age to age, 

Its sheltering shadow shall be shed. 
Nations shall seek its pillarVl shade, 

Its leaves shall for their healing be; 
The circling flood that feeds its life, 

The blood that crimsoned Calvary. , 



NUMERICAL PROGRESS OF THE 
CHURCH. 

ISTEN to a few cold figures. What was the 
number of the Church on the day of Pentecost? 
It was 3,000, but some seventy years later, at the 
end of the first century, the Church had increased 
to some 500,000 souls, which number had increased 
by the days of Constantine — glorious days for the Church 
of Christ— to 10,500,000. Then look on, and I do not 
fear even to look into the dark middle ages when the Church 
of the West separated itself from and anathematized the 
Church of the East. At this time the 10,000,000 Christians 
of the time of Constantine had become 30,000,000, which 
again by the time of the glorious Reformation had grown 
to 100;000,000;, and at the present time there are on the face 




214 OUR CHURCH, 

of the globe no less than 450,000,000 of Christians, Now, 
then, may we dare to look forward ? The population of the 
world, as nearly as we can estimate it, is now 1,400,000,000, 
and, following the same rate of progress as in the past, the 
number of Christians will also go on increasing in an equal if 
not a greater ratio, and the gross number will have become 
mighty almost beyond computation. The statistics which I, 
have quoted may seem curious, but they will bear the test 
of inspection, and are such as to fill us with hope. 

— Bishop G. J. Ellicott. 



A NEW^ LITERATURE. 

HRISTIANITY has originated a new form of 

literature wholly its own — a literature not known 

, ^ under any ancient form of mythology; not known 




under any form of modern heathenism ; not known 
to infidelity; not known to philosophy; and it has, at 
the same time, originated an institution most effective 
for applying that literature, and for securing its own 
influence over the young — I allude to the Sabbath-school, 
and to the literature which has been originated by that insti- 
tution. This, if there were nothing else, would show that 
Christianity in its eiForts to perpetuate and propagate itself 
is quite abreast of the world. The literature of the Sabbath- 
school may not be, in respect to quality, all that could be 
desired, but it may be doubted whether there is any other 
department of literature that is exerting as much influence 
on the destinies of mankind. 

Infidelity, Mohammedanism and Buddhism have no pe- 
culiar literature for the young, nor have they any peculiar 



OUB CHURCH. 215 

institution where to inculcate their sentiments in the young. 
Science, with great difficulty, prepares books for the young; 
but its literature in astronomy, botany, chemistry, designed 
to guide the young, as compared with the literature of the 
Sabbath-school, is meagre in the extreme. The Sabbath- 
school and the Sabbath-school library stand by themselves. 
Both capable, undoubtedly, of great improvement, they are, 
nevertheless, exerting a vast power on the coming genera- 
tion ; and it is difficult to see how a religion that has such 
an agency as the Sabbath-school could be exterminated from 
the world. One day during each week, of every month in 
the year, the children of this nation are brought directly 
under Christian instruction, with all the advantages, in 
theory at least, of calling into the service the best talent, 
the highest intelligence, the warmest piety, the most devoted 
zeal existing in the churches. Through all parts of the 
country, by agencies of its own, that literature is placed in 
the hands of the young before other influences are brought 
to bear on them, to form their hearts pure, to teach them to 
believe the Bible, and to love and serve God. 

— Albert Barnes, 

THE FOUNTAIN OF SONG. 

VRUE song is the gift of God Qur Maker. He 
]^ giveth songs even in the night; and songs have 
ever celebrated his glory and his grace. The 
creation of the world was heralded by song. 
'^ The morning stars sang together, and all the sons 
of God shouted for joy." The deliverance of Israel 
from Pharaoh and the Red Sea was celebrated in a 
song. The advent of Christ to our world brought all the 




216 OUR CHURCH. 

hosts of heaven to sing a joyous strain above his lowly cra- 
dle. The renewing of the soul by the grace of God awakens 
thanksgiving and the voice of melody. The Psalmist, when 
brought up from the horrible pit and the miry clay, had a 
new song put in his mouth, "even praise unto our God." 
The last act of our Saviour's ministry, before he went out to 
his agony, was to sirig a hymn. What music that must 
have been ! The establishment of the kingdom of God and 
the overthrow of all his enemies will be hailed and greeted 
with strains of rapturous melody ; and the glad ages of 
Messiah's reign will be ages of perpetual song. Song is the 
language of thanksgiving, of devotion, of triumph ; hence it 
is the legitimate expression of the emotions of those who 
joy in God, having become reconciled to him, and thus pre- 
pared to show forth the praises of him^who has called them 
to glory and virtue. 

There is, probably, no one point where the difference be- 
tween believers and infidels, saints and sinners, saved and 
lost, is more manifest than in the department of sacred song. 
The pardon of sin brings peace and gladness, and this glad- 
ness finds expression in song. Said the Psalmist, " Deliver 
me from blood-guiltiness, God, thou God of my salvation ; 
and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness !' The 
fruit of the spirit is Joi/; and joy perpetually breaks forth in 
song. But guilt and condemnation, and the dark uncertain- 
ties of a hopeless future, wake no songs within rebellious and 
disbelieving hearts. Backsliding and worldliness vainly 
strive to sing from the heart their "formal songs." Singing 
tells the condition of the Church. Worldly professors have 
very little music in their souls. Dead churches hire sinners 
to praise God for them. Living Christians would as soon 
hire sinners to eat their breakfasts for them as to sing their 



OUR CHURCH. 217 

psalms. Nightingales and larks do not go hunting for owls 
and ravens to "render" their evening songs or morning 
carols. ^ 

Christians are a singing people. From the time when 
Pliny, the Roman governor of Bithynia, wrote — about A. D. 
107 — to the Emperor Trajan that the Christians " were w^ont 
to meet together on a stated day before it was light, and sing 
among themselves, alternately, a hymn to Christ as a god," 
down through all the ages of conflict and victory, of storm 
and sorrow, of persecution and triumph, the voice of rejoic- 
ing has been in the tabernacles of the righteous, and sacred 
song has arisen from the lips of the redeemed. The themes 
of grace and glory have inspired the Church with never- 
ceasing songs ; and in this respect infidelity has never been 
able to imitate true Christianity. What hymns and tunes 
can infidelity show that have sung themselves into the hearts 
of skeptics of every shore ? What infidel hymn can be sung 
in which a vast assembly of skeptics wdll join, as Christians 
in ten thousand churches will unite in singing one of their 
hymns of joy and hope ? Infidelity has few joys ; why 
should it have songs ? What has it to sing about ? Angels 
sing, but when did the wildest fancy ever dream of a singing 
devil ? 

One of the mightiest forces which God has thrown into 
this world is sacred song, not the mere artistic and mechani- 
cal " rendering " of certain notes and strains of music, but 
the spontaneous outgush of the emotions of the sanctified 
heart, telling the sorrows and the joys, the sympathies and 
the affections of the renewed soul. Such music is not pur- 
chasable. Those who think to buy or hire it greatly mistake 
its character. It has its fountain in the joy of God im- 
planted in the Christian's soul; and meets its response in the 



218 OUR CHURCH. 

hearts of those who know whom they have trusted, and who 
expect to sing His praises foreverrnore. Infidels can sneer 
and swear, but can they sing? What have they to sing 
about ? What had the heathen world to sing ? If we leave 
out a few notable strains which acknowledge and honor the 
unseen God, what remains but amorous and bacchanalian 
ditties; odes vrhich celebrated the acts of cut-throat and 
adulterous deities, most of whom would be hung or sent to 
prison in any decently civilized land ; songs which embodied 
vile thoughts, celebrated base acts, and awoke base passions ? 

In the room where these lines are written there are nearly 
1,500 volumes of sacred hymns and songs ; and the writer 
has seen two other libraries, each of which contained nearly 
3,000 volumes of sacred hymns and poetry. And all there 
is of poetry, and melody, and harmony, about them all is 
but the echo of the heavenly harmonies that have sounded 
down from the upper skies. When we sing of the grandeurs 
of creation, we but re-echo the anthem of the morning stars; 
when we sing of the glories of redemption, we but repeat the 
angel's song above the plains of Bethlehem ; when we sing 
of struggle, of conflict, of victory, and of triumph, we re- 
hearse the hymns of the sweet singer of Israel ; and when 
we sing of joys to come, we only anticipate the music of the 
'' New Song " which shall at last be sung before the throne. 

Thus our themes of sacred song are the grandest that 
earth or heaven affords. And what has infidelity or unbe- 
lief to put in the place of them ? Where are the poems, the 
songs, the chorales, the grand anthems that have been born 
of darkness, doubt, and unbelief? Infidelity has no hymns; 
it has nothing to sing for — no God, no hope, or Creator, no 
Preserver, no Christ, no Saviour. Imagine a jubilant infidel, 
contemplating his glorious origin, breaking out to sing : 



OUR CHURCH. 219 

*^A11 hail the mighty monkey, all hail the ancieut calm, 
From which, through evolution, I came to be a man!" 

Picture an assembly of festive infidels, singing heartily, to 
" some familiar tune/' of the sublime anticipations which fill 
their bosoms, thus ; 

" Between two vast eternities 
Life lies, a vale of sorrow ; 
So eat, and drink, and take your ease, 
For we shall die to-morrow. 

''Ascending from our mollusk god, 
A glorious path we travel ; 
Our course, commencing in the mud, 
Shall finish in the gravel.'' 

We recollect once, after pointing out the barrenness of 
infidelity in respect to sacred song, we were assailed by a 
skeptic, who stoutly disputed our assertion that infidelity 
had no hymns, and said he had an infidel hymn-book which 
he would bring to show us. We were thankful for the 
opportunity of seeing it, and so in the course of the day he 
brought along a little book largely filled up with Christian 
hymns, out of which the name of Christ had been erased, 
and "reason," "truth," or some other word had been substi- 
tuted. And this was the way infidels made a hymn-book; 
much like the man who promised to show cobblers how to 
make a pair of shoes in two minutes, and who, after having 
pocketed the admission fees of the crowd, coolly produced a 
pair of boots, and made them into shoes hy cutting the tops 

We remember the story of that captive prince who 



220 



UR CH UR CH. 



languished in a foreign dungeon, and of whom his friends 
could hear no tidings, until a faithful servant, eager for his 
release, travelled from land to land, and sang beside the 
walls of every dungeon the songs which were his delight in 
bygone days. At length, as the strain of music rolled up- 
ward by an old castle wall, there came a response from a grated 
window above ; the captive was discovered, and the way of 
deliverance was opened. So, by every dungeon-wall which 
Satan has erected, and in the hearing of every lost sinner 
whom Satan has led captive at his will, we would have the 
songs of joy and gladness sung, in the hope that some im- 
prisoned soul may catch tlie music of the strain, and know 
the grace of Him who came to proclaim liberty to the cap- 
tives, and the opening of the prison doors to them that are 
bound. — H. L. Hastings. 




THE ONE CHURCH. 

HKOUGH the night of doubt and sorrow 
Onward goes the pilgrim band, 
Singing songs of expectation, 
Marching to the Promised Land. 

Clear before us through the darkness 
Gleams and burns the guiding Light; 

Brother clasps the hand of brother, 
Stepping fearless through the night. 



One the Light of God's own Presence 
O'er His ransomed people shed, 

Chasing far the gloom and terror, 
Brightening all the path we tread. 



OUR CHURCH. 22i 

One the object of our journey, 

One the faith that never tires, 
One th.e earnest looking forward, 

One the hope our God inspires : 

One the strain that h*ps of thousands 

Lift as from the heart of one; 
One the conflict, one the peril. 

One the march in God begun : 

One the gladness of rejoicing 

On the far eternal shore, 
Where the One Almighty Father 

Keigns in love for evermore. 

Onward, therefore, pilgrim brothers, 

Onward with the Cross our aid ; 
Bear its shame, and fight its battle 

Till we rest beneath its shade. 

Soon shall come the great awaking, 

Soon the rending of the tomb; 
Then the scattering of all shadows, 

And the end of toil and gloom. 

— Sahine Baring Gould, 



THE CHURCH WILL LIVE. 

/^HRISTIANITY in spite of the dissensions, the follies, 
the coldness and the unfiiithfiilness of its followers, is 
still living, still spreading, and will grow brighter and 

purer until there comes to it the light of the perfect day. — 

John T, Perry, 




222 OUE CHURCB, 



THE TRUE CENTRE OF THE 
CHURCH. 

HE true centre around which the Church of Christ 
YP rallies, concentrates and crystallizes, is Christ 
^ himself. . . . He is the central shaft, to which 
the universal Church is attached, and from which 
all its power is derived. Any effort to belt the 
machinery on to another shaft, or to connect it with 
another centre, only ends in calamity and ruin. There 
is no man who can furnish the power that is needed to en- 
ergize the Church. There is no man, dead or living, but 
the man Christ Jesus, whose name is potent to stir the 
hearts of the disciples of the Lord and rouse their energies 
to perform the service which he requires. Nor is there any 
other name which rules the spirit of darkness but that name 
which is " above every name." Men, like the vagabond 
Jews of old, may take it upon themselves to pronounce their 
incantations and exorcisms over the evil spirits of the world, 
in the name of their sects, their leaders and their founders, 
but the answer will come : "Jesus I know, and Paul I know, 
but who are ye ? " and they will flee before the onset of the 
foes whose wrath they have aroused. Christ is the true 
centre, Christ is the infallible leader, Christ is all and in all. 
Every attempt at human leadership crowds some poor mor- 
tal, living or dead, into a position which he cannot fill, and 
has no right to occupy. It subjects him to criticism ; it dis- 
plays before the world his weakness and his frailties ; it ne- 
cessitates the defence of that which cannot be defended, and 
fills the mouths of Christian men with apologies for the 



UR CH UR CH. 223 

faults and follies of sinful men, instead of bold and confident 
testimonies *to the grace and glory of the spotless Son of 
God. And when all is done nothing is gained, either of au- 
thority or power or blessing, for all human exaltation is 
worse than idle, in the presence of Him who hath purposed 
to stain the pride of all glory, and to bring into contempt 
all the honorable of the earth. — TJie Christian, 



PERPETUITY OF THE CHURCH. 

HE long existence of the Christian Church would 
be pronounced, upon common principles of rea- 
soning, impossible. She finds in every man a 
natural and an inveterate enemy. To encounter 
and overcome the unanimous hostility of the w^orld, 
boasts no political stratagem, no disciplined legions, 
no outward coercion of any kind. Yet, her expectation 
is that she will live forever. 

To mock this hope, and to blot out her memorial from 
under heaven, the most furious efforts of fanaticism, the 
most ingenious arts of statesmen, the concentrated strength 
of empires, have been frequently and perseveringly applied. 
The blood of her sons and her daughters has streamed like 
water ; the smoke of the scafibld and the stake, where they 
wore the crown of martyrdom in the cause of Jesus, has as- 
cended in thick volumes to the skies. The tribes of perse- 
cution have sported over her woes and erected monuments, 
as they imagined, of her perpetual ruin. But where are 
her tyrants, and where their empires? The tyrants have 
long since gone to their own place ; their names have de- 




224 ^ ^^ CHURCH. 

scended upon the roll of infamy ; their empires have passed, 
like shadows, over the rock ; they have successively disap- 
peared, and left not a trace behind. 

But what became of the Church ? She rose from her 
ashes, fresh in beauty and might; celestial glory beamed 
around her; she dashed down the monumental marble of 
her foes, and they who hated her fled before her. She has 
celebrated the funeral of kings and kingdoms that plotted 
her destruction, and with the inscriptions of their pride has 
transmitted to posterity the records of their shame. How 
shall this phenomenon be explained ? We are at the pres- 
ent moment witnesses of the fact; but who can unfold the 
mystery ? The book of truth and life has made our wonder 
cease. " The Lord her God in the midst of her, is mighty." 
His presence is a fountain of health, and his protection a 
"wall of fire." He has betrothed her, in eternal covenant, 
to himself Her living head, in whom she lives, is above, 
and his quickening spirit shall never depart from her. 
Armed with divine virtue, his Gospel, secret, silent, unob- 
served, enters the hearts of men and sets up an everlasting 
kingdom. It eludes all the vigilance and baffles all the 
power of the adversary. 

Bars and bolts and dungeons are no obstacles to its ap- 
proach : bonds and tortures and death cannot extinguish its 
influence. Let no man's heart tremble, then, because of 
fear. Let no man despair (in these days of rebuke and 
blasphemy) of the Christian cause. The ark is launched, 
indeed, upon the floods ; the tempest sweeps along the deep ; 
the billows break over her on every side ; but Jehovah-Jesus 
has promised to conduct her in safety to the haven of peace. 
She cannot be lost unless the pilot perish. — Dr, Mason. 



OUR CHURCH. 



225 




THE CHURCH IMMOVABLE. 



WHERE are kings and empires now, 

Of old that went and came ? 
But, Lord, thy Church is praying yet, 

A thousand years the same. 

We mark her goodly battlements, 

And her foundations strong ; 
We hear within the solemn voice 

Of her unending song. 

For not like kingdoms of the world. 

Thy holy Church, O God ! 
Though earthquake shocks are threatening her, 

And tempests are abroad ; 

Unshaken as eternal hills, 

Immovable she stands, 
A mountain that shall fill the earth, 

A house not made by hands. 

— A. Cleveland Coxe. 



CHRISTIANITY A FINALITY. 

HAT Christianity is a finality, that it is the last 

and only revelation which God may be expected 

to make, and that it will survive all the changes 

and revolutions which may take place down to 

the end of time, is guaranteed by the promise and 

presence of Christ in the Church, the truth of which has 

been so strengthened and confirmed during the nineteen 

centuries of conflict and struggle through which it has passed 
15 




226 OUR CHURCH. 

as to leave no rational doubt of its complete triumph, for if 
it has gained the strength and influence it has, starting as it 
did with the combined opposition of both Jews and Gentiles, 
what power can crush it now since it has made a conquest 
of more than half the world? 

If the gates of hell could not prevail against it in its 
weakness, what probability is there of a defeat now since it 
has gained the strength it has ? — Rev. Geo. W. Williard. 



THE CHURCH. 

HE gray Church rose on the hill and climbed, 
Aloft, stone by stone ; and I stood on it. 
And saw quite o'er the sea of human life 
To that far Port which, like a setting sun, 
Swims deep in gold. Then waters vanislied, 
Vanished east and west, vanished all - 
But the far zenith, and the rising pile 
Beneath, and swift electric speech darting 
Between the two. And the climbing temple 
Said to God, " I come to thee, O Most High, 
Come painfully, but bring with me the thoughts 
Of men, their Sabbaths, and their costly selves.'^ 
And God said, " Come and bring my little ones. 
My gray-haired sires and mothers, all my rich 
And poorest, and sheep without a shepherd, 
From rough hillside and from vale. Let them climb 
By the strong ladder of thy rugged rocks 
And graded buttresses and taper tower, 
Into these skies which thou dost pierce for them ; 
Nor let them fear the dizzy thoroughfare. 
On every rocky spur and ledge and slope 
Shall stand my angels with their helping hands, 





OUE CRURCH. 227 

And so, Sabbath by Sabbath, age by age, 
The stream of souls shall pass securely up 
Thy stony steeps into my best Temple." 

— Rev. Dr. Burr. 



THE CHURCH GOD^S HOUSE. 

HE term house of God, -when used in the Old 
Testament, we understand as meaning the 
Church of the Jews, It is said " Moses w^as 
faithful in all his house," Heb. iii. 2. That is, 
he ordered all things in the Jewish church accord- 
to the command of God. And in the New Testa- 
ment the Church of God, or of Christ, is called his 
house, as in Tim. iii. 15, "That thou mayest know how 
to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the Church 
of the living God." And in Heb. iii. 6, "But Christ as the 
Son over his own house, w^hose house are we." It is not the 
walls and pews and adornings of the material building that 
constitute the Church, bat the body of believers in Christ, 
the institutions connected with religious service and the 
place where that worship is held and offered, whether it be 
inside of a building or out in the leafy woods with no cover- 
ing but the blue bending sky. But there are special places 
set apart and consecrated to the service of God, and w^hich 
he has been pleased to own, and bless, and honor as such 
wnth his presence and grace. ilnd wherever he reveals 
himself and this worship is set up, and this communion 
enjoyed with him, is the house of God. It was so when 
Noah builded an altar unto the Lord after the flood and 
offered burnt-offerings thereon. And so when Abraham built 
an altar on Mount Moriab, on which he intended to present 



228 0^^ CHURCH. 

Isaac as a sacrifice unto the Lord, the name of which place 
is called Jehovah jireh ; as it is to this day, " In the Mount 
of the Lord it shall be seen." And so wlien Isaac went up 
to Beersheba : "And the Lord appeared unto him the same 
night and said, ' I am the God of Abraham thy father; fear 
not, for I am with thee, and will bless thee, and multiply 
thy seed.' And he builded an altar there and called upon 
the name of the Lord." And so when Jacob journeyed to- 
wards Haran, and in his vision saw a ladder upon which were 
ascending and descending the angels of God, and at the top 
of which stood the Lord himself, and spoke to him, "And 
when he awoke out of his sleep, he said, ' surely the Lord is 
in this place ! This is none other but the house of God, and 
this is the gate of heaven.' " 

Thus all through the Patriarchal Dispensation the house of 
God was set up, established, and resorted to by his people. 
They had no settled place of worship, but wherever God met 
with them and blest them, and covenanted with them, his 
Church was established, and they set up a memorial. 

Then under the Mosaic Dispensation we have a more 
formal introduction and visible manifestation and repre- 
sentation of the house of God. Its form, and principle, and 
life were embodied in the Ten Commandments given from 
Sinai, and the institution of the ceremonial law regulating 
its worship. And all through this dispensation they had the 
house of God — the Tabernacle in which the Shekinah dwelt. 
Thus they worshipped all through the wilderness until the 
building of the magnificent Temple by Solomon, the types and 
ceremonies of which prefigured and foreshadowed the glorj^ of 
the later house, which would be greater than the former, ush- 
ered in and established forever by the Lord Jesus Christ. Thus 
in all ages of the world, from the call of Abraham down to 



OUR CHURCH, 229 

the present time, God has had a house — a Church. Amidst 
the changes and ravages of time it has stood, an everhisting 
memorial of the wisdom, and goodness, and power of God. 
Empires have fallen, and the proudest monuments of art have 
decayed, but this has stood a living testimony of the 
promise and faithfulness of Jehovah. 

True, she has had her dark seasons, her outward temples 
have been demolished, her ordinances have been perverted, 
her worshippers have been scattered, " red -garbed persecu- 
tion " has assailed her, storms loud and terrible have thun- 
dered around her, clouds dark and portentous have en- 
veloped her; but her foundation, deep laid in the Rock of 
Ages, has never moved. She has come up out of the fire, 
the storm, and the tempest, purified and still more glorious. 
And she stands to-day the living Oracle of God, with her 
spires pointing heavenward, adorned with the beautiful gar- 
ments of Salvation, and her solemn voices of song and praise 
calling together the worshippers. — Rev. J. A. McFaden. 



THE HOUSE OF GOD A REFUGE. 

'HERE is a refuge of peace from the tempests that beat, 
From the dark clouds that threateo, from the wild wind 
'i£ that blows ; 

)^^^5^^^A holy, a sweet, and a lovely retreat, 

A spring of refreshment, a place of rep<^e. 

'Tis the house of my God — 'tis the dwelling of prayer— 
'Tis the temple all hallowed by blessing and praise ; 

If sorrow and faithlessness conquer me there, 
My heart to the throne of his grace I can raise. 






230 ^^^ CHURCH. 

For a refuge like this, ah ! what praises are doe ? 

For a rest so serene, for a covert so fair ; 
Ah, why are the seasons of worship so few? 

Ah, why are so seldom the meetings of prayer? 

— James Edmeston. 



THE CHURCH IN THE HOUSE. 

'E are making far too little of the Church in the 
house. We are waiting for our children to be 
converted bj outside influences, v/hen, if we were 
to look at the matter rightly, it should be our 
ambition to be ourselves the leaders of our sons and 
^^. daughters to the Lord. Some years ago I read an 
' ' account of the manner in which a cold church was 
stirred into warmth and vitality ; and, as it bears directly 
on the point to which I am now referring, I will take the 
liberty of introducing it here. At one of the conference 
meetings a simple man, not remarkable for fluency or cor- 
rectness of speech, made an appeal something to the follow- 
ing effect : " I feel, brethren, real bad about the people who 
don't love the Lord Jesus Christ, here in our own neighbor- 
hood. We're not as we ought to be, that's very certain, but 
it's, hard work rowing against the stream. We find that 
out when we talk to men about religion on Sunday who 
haven't any religion all the week. They don't mind us. 
And just so with the young folks. Their minds all seem 
running one way. Now, what's to be done ? Not much 
with the grown folks, for they aren't controlled by us, and 
we can only drop a word now and then, and pray for them. 
But here's our own children. I have four boys, and only 
one of them comes to the communion with his mother and 



OUR CHURCH, 231 

me. And I don't think I have done my duty to those 
younger boys. They love me^ and God knows I love them ; 
but I kind o' hate to speak to them about religion. But 
rather than see them go farther without my Jesus for their 
Jesus, I'm going to ask them to join him. I'm going to pray 
with them ; and if I can't tell them all they want to know, 
why, our minister can. Brethren, I'm going to try to turn 
the stream for my boys. Home is the head of the river. I 
mean to begin to-night. Won't some father do like me with 
his boys, and give me his word out?" Scarcely had he 
seated himself when^ one after another, some thirty people 
pledged themselves, saying : " I'll do the same at my house;" 
and the pledge was kept. In a short time the minister s 
labors began to tell as they had never done before. The 
influence spread, but there was no excitement. On the occa- 
sion of the communion-service, from family after family one 
and another came to enroll themselves among the followers 
of Jesus, and nearly every one that came was under twenty- 
five years of age. So, through revived home effort, the 
work of God was stimulated both in the church and in the 
neighborhood. My friends, this witness is true. "Home is 
the head of the river." Is there no one here to-night who 
will join in the resolution made by that earnest man, and 
say, " By the grace of God, I'll do the same at my house?" 

— Anonymous. 



Give Christianity a common law trial; submit the 
evidence, pro and con, to an impartial jurj^, under the 
direction of a competent court, and the verdict w^ll assuredly 
be in its favor. 

•—Chief- Justice Gibson. 



232 



OUR CHUECS. 



PICTURE OF FAMILY WORSHIP. 



HE cheerful supper done, wF serious face, 

They, round the ingle, form a circle wide ; 
The sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace. 

The big ha'-Bible, ance his father's pride ; 
His bonnet is reverently laid aside. 

His lyart haffets wearing thin an' bare; 
Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide. 

He wales a portion with judicious care; 
And "Let us worship God ! '' he says with solemn air. 




They chant their artless notes in simple guise ; 

They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim : 
Perhaps " Dundee's '' wild-warbling measures rise, 

Or plaintive " Martyrs'' worthy of the name ; 
Or noble " Elgin *' beats the heavenward flame, 

The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays"; 
Compared with these, Italian trills are tame ; 

The tickled ears no heartfelt raptures raise ; 
Nae unison hao they with our Creator's praise. 

The priestlike father reads the sacred page — 

How Abrara was the friend of God on high ; 
Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage 

With Amalek's ungracious progeny. 
Or how the royal bard did groaning lie 

Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire; 
Or Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry; 

Or rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire ; 
Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre. 

Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme — 
How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed; 



OUR CHURCH. 233 

How He, who bore in Heaven the second name, 
Had not on earth whereon to lay His head ; 

How His first followers and servants sped; 
The precepts sage they wrote to many a land ; 

How He, who lone in Patmos banished, 
Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand, 

And heard great Bab'lon's doom pronounced by Heaven's 
command. 

Then, kneeling down, to Heaven's eternal King, 

The saint, the father, and the husband prays ; 
Hope "springs exulting on triumphant wings,'' 

That thus they all shall meet in future days; 
There ever bask in uncreated rays, 

No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear, 
Together hymning their Creator's praise, 

In such society, yet still more dear ; 
While circling Time moves round in an eternal sphere. 

Compared with this, how poor Religion's pride, 

In all the pomp of method and of art. 
When men display to congregations wide. 

Devotion's every grace, except the heart ! 
The Power, incensed, the pageant will desert, 

The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole ; 
But haply, in some cottage far apart. 

May hear, well pleased, the language of the soul; 
And in His Book of Life the inmates poor enroll. 

— Robert Burns. 



It is the mission of the Church to preach to all nations, to 
convert the world, and not confine its efforts to its own 
vicinage or community. Such is the command of Christ ; 
such the duty of his followers. — Dr. John Hall^ 



234 OUR CHURCH, 



THE CHILDREN. 



fi 




TEEPLES and infants suggest two important ele- 
ments in our civilization — the Church and the 
children. The mission of this Church, identical 
with the mission of the Master, is " to seek and 
to save that which was lost." The children — di- 
^^ vinely appointed to be saved — will be lost, unless, by 
strong, persistent, wise and loving labors, the Church, 
divinely appointed to " seek the lost," make sturdy efforts to 
save them. To do this the Church and the children nmst 
be brought together. That gulf lying between the Church 
and the child must be bridged or filled. The Church does 
not exist as an adult prerogative. It must recognize, in sub- 
stantial attention, the boy and the girl. We rejoice that a 
change for the better is now fairly inaugurated. The mul- 
tiplication of children's classes, Oxford Leagues, and young 
people's societies are narrowing the long-existing chasm and 
giving congratulatory evidence of better days. And yet 
much remains to be done, by the Church, the Sunday-school, 
and the home, for the little children. 

We insist that the Church shall look after that child. 
Educationally we are doing something. Socially we need io 
improve. Company and amusements of some sort the child 
will have. If the Church fail to provide it the world will 
surely not neglect to do so. Interesting and wholesome 
reading matter, Sunday-school concerts, magic lantern or 
polyopticon exhibitions at our homes on w^eek nights, an oc- 
casional tea, with games or chemical and mechanical experi- 
ments, summer excursions — these are a few of many sug- 



OUE CHURCH. 235 

gestive expedients. Only give the world the social training 
of our children, and soon, instead of a joyful, pure-minded, 
religious child-life among us, we shall have a silly, depraved 
and godless life developing into a youth-time either alienated 
from the Church or interested in it only for what in a social 
or business way it can extract from it. 

Then, too, the children must be trained for heaven. 
Children's classes should be formed, and led, say, by some 
woman of tact, expedients and consecration, who loves chil- 
dren. The Sunday-school must be used to mahe Christians 
of the boys and girls. The Bible is to be taught and ex- 
pounded, but above all things the soul is to be saved. 
Transcendental philosophy, theory and humbug, the "mis- 
takes of Moses," " higher (or lower) criticism," may be 
lightly passed by the average child. Is the Sunday-school 
to teach negations or doubt? Is the exposition of Scrip- 
ture the only work of the Sunday-school? We doubt. It 
must exalt the divine Christ as a personal Saviour, show 
the sinfulness of the heart and our tendency to evil, im- 
press moral responsibility and the necessity of regeneration 
and purification. It must teach Christ, the Word, and what- 
soever truth may relate to the life temporal or the life 
immortal. 

To make the Sunday-school thus efficient we must exer- 
cise care in the elevation of Christians to the dignity of 
teachers and officers. The superintendent must not be a 
man of wood or putty or mud. He ought not to be dull, 
weak, or unsavory, in habit or speech. If possible, he ought 
to have a strong mind, but he must have a warm heart, good 
judgment, tact, common sense, vivacity, and complete con- 
secration to the salvation of his school. Teachers should 
have good minds, warm Christian experiences, and love for 



236 ^^^ CHURCH. 

souls. Inefficient or disinterested teachers ought to be- 
pupils. 

The pastor can "lend a hand " in filling this gulf between 
the Church and the children by taking a lively interest in 
the boys and girls. But he must really care for them. It 
will not do to smooth Mary's curls in public and then forget 
her in the study. He must preach to the children. He 
must preach intelligently, and get never above their mental 
grasp. He must have a care loliat he preaches and how. 
Children are neither fools nor half-witted. Frequently they 
are very bright and critical. It is easy to secure and hold 
the child's respect, but when the preacher lets himself down 
to weak stories, silly talk and patronizing airs because he is 
speaking to children, it will be strange if they do not 
despise both him and his platitudes. Be men, and preach 
a manly gospel to them in easy language. Then, out of 
the pulpit, have their confidence, love them, notice them, 
call them by name, give them a good word, and in every 
right manner aim at capturing their souls for the Master. 

The membership of the Church also ought to be interested 
in the child. As far as practicable adult members should 
remain in the Sunday-school to give it the benefit of their 
influence, and to show the child that he is never " too big " 
or "too old" for that place. Parents who are members 
must live bright, godly lives at home, and never neglect the 
paramount duty of a family altar. We owe the children 
this. We promised God when we united with the Church 
that we would " promote the advancement of the Redeemer's 
kingdom." This we cannot do if we ignore the " little ones." 
If our children are baptized, then we must remember that at 
the fount we solemnly pledged ourselves to teach the child 
" to give reverent attendance upon the appointed means of 



UR CH TJR CH. 237 

grace, to read the Scriptures, learn the Lord's Prayer, the 
Ten Commandments, the Apostle's Creed and the Catechism.'' 
Have we done these things ? 

In this connection let me urge the importance of attention 
to the quality of the reading matter upon our tables. Ex- 
clude the weak, immoral and skeptical ; but do not fail to 
provide a better feast in some of the wholesome literature of 
the day. A story need not be silly, empty, untruthful, or 
immoral, to be fascinating. Put Our Youth or some other 
periodical of kindred merit upon the table. Have, by all 
means, a religious weekly. Buy occasionally a good book. 
It is to me a dreadful thought that a lost soul may be the 
price paid for neglecting to subtract the bad and to add the 
good. Let me here refer to that evil habit of idle gossip in 
our homes, where, in presence of our children, the preacher 
and members are criticised or held up to ridicule. If we 
must do this horrible thing let us spare the children from 
hearing our unkind and perhaps untrue remarks. The child 
will catch up our word, adopt the sentiment and doubtless 
lose confidence in the men and religion we denounce. Leave 
that Christian alone. Though not perfect, he, like ourselves, 
is probably doing the best he can. Speak a good word for 
him, and it may be he will lead even yoiiv children into the 
kingdom. Having now alluded to some possibilities and 
duties before the Church I may close by considering 
several motives that ought to actuate us in our labors for 
the children. And, first, the motive of obedience to Ood. 
The God-imposed obligation on the Church is to bring the 
children to Christ. '' Suffer them to come," said Jesus, ^^for 
of such is the kingdom of heaven." " Take heed that ye 
despise not one of these little ones." '' Let him that heareth 
say, Come." A second motive is found in the increase of 



238 ^^^ CHURCH. 

righteousness and decrease of sin. The children of to-day 
will be helpful or harmful to the world and the Church just 
in proportion as they accept or reject Christ. Do we stop 
to think that these children, many of them with no training 
for righteousness, coming up in ignorance, immortahty and 
spiritual darkness, are to be masters of men and the 
moulders of thought, the law-makers and the law-breakers 
of to-morrow ? 

Soul interest is a third motive. Remembering the mis- 
sion of the Church, the motive for her to win the children 
is sublimely urgent when -you consider the efforts put fortli 
by the world for their destruction. An analogy will suflB- 
ciently illustrate this. In the Middle Ages, among the many 
crusades for the recovery of the Holy City, was a movement 
on the part of the children, and called the " children's cru- 
sade." Coming together in great numbers and receiving 
recruits along the route they started for Jerusalem. Unor- 
ganized, inexperienced, inured to no hardships, they soon 
found themselves dropping in the way. Bj^ fatigue, by 
hunger, by treachery, by hostile forces, their numbers suffered 
constant diminution until the bones of hundreds of the in- 
nocents lay bleaching under the sun. To-day, as in all time, 
children are born for heaven — the New Jerusalem. By 
thousands they travel on, beset by passion within and 
temptations without. The world, the flesh and the devil 
are after them. By the cigar, the rum-shop, the dance, the 
theater, the impure novel, the sensational newspaper, by 
the brilliant light, the enchanting music, the magnificent 
display, the evil companion, they are lured to ruin. The 
world is doing its utmost, father, mother, to ruin your 
boy and girl. What will 3'ou do for them ? Brothers, the 
motives of obedience, of righteous expediency, of soul 



OUR CHURCH. 2^9 

interest are urgent. They counsel care and dispatch. Shall 
we be led by these motives, and labor as churches, as 
ministers, and as members, to save the child ? God help us 
to be true to the children, loyal to conviction and true to 
God in order that the child-soul may find refuge in the many- 
mansioned house. — Rev. W. P. Stoddard, 



EVERY FAMILY A CHURCH. 

Every family should be a little church, and every church 
should be a large family.— Dr. Arnot. 



THE FAMILY A NURSERY. 

Christian families are the nurseries of the Church on 
earth as she is the nursery of the Church in heaven. 

—J. M. Mason, 

THE YOUNG FOR CHRIST. 

S the wise men of the East brought their choicest offer- 
ings to the infant Jesus, so, in the unfolding ages, the 
wisdom of the Church turned toward infant humanity. 
True philosophy, as well as true Christianity, calls for in- 
creasing attention to childhood. The children of to-day 
v/ill, in twenty years, wi^ld the social and civil power of the 
globe. Whoever wins the youth will govern the world. 
The motto of Sunday-school workers everywhere should 
be : "All the youth for Christ." — Bisjiop Simpson. 





240 OUE CHURCH. 

COMING INTO THE CHURCH. 

HE greatest forces that ever have been exerted in 
this world have been those against which all the 
^ chances ran. If, from any point of view, eight- 
een hundred years ago or more, you had been 
asked to select the man that was destined to have 
the most power in the world, you would have gone 
over all creation before you would have selected that 
poor peasant, in a district of a province in Galilee, the 
child of a carpenter^ and a child, as the world must then 
have seen it, having a putative father only. He had no 
commission during his three ministerial years. He did not 
go out as one sent ; he was as one rejected by all the au- 
thorities of his owm people. He was arrested by the most 
eminent of his kind. He was condemned by his govern- 
ment. He suffered a death that was not "only extremely 
cruel, but that always carried with it an odious element. 
The cross at that time was what the gallows is nowadays — • 
and even worse ; the ignominy of it cannot be overstated ; 
and if you could in imagination hover over that scene and 
time, you would say that there never was a more unfortu- 
nate creature living than Christ. Can you conceive of any 
one humbler than he was — born of poverty ; rejected by his 
own family ; at first for a little time followed, from curiosity, 
by the common people ; repudiated, cast out of the syna- 
gogue and temple, and given over to death ? And yet the 
name of Christ is the name that to-day stands above every 
other name for power and for influence. Think of what 
that name has done in modifying manners, changing insti- 
tutions, overthrowing laws, and raising the thought of 



OUR CHURCH. 241 

humanity in the minds not only of Christians, but even of 
those who reject religion as a revelation of God ! There 
has been that gain. 

Then take the gathering of the Church. Christ was the 
leader of a small band of men. He was taken from them, 
crucified and buried. There were a dozen folks or more 
that came together, as it were, to keep their sorrow warm. 
Their every single aspiration had come to nothing. They 
cherished the expectation that one day he would restore 
Israel. They thought that he was really a divine creature, 
and that he had the power of God, inasmuch as he raised 
the dead, cured the sick, healed the blind, and made the deaf 
to hear; but in so far as his kingdom was concerned, was 
there ever anything that seemed more utterly hopeless to 
them ? 

And when, with fear and trembling, they were finally 
brought to believe that he had risen from the dead, and gone 
up again on high, what sort of a body was the cluster of 
disciples that composed the primitive Church ? If anybody^ 
looking in upon that handful of squalid people, without 
wealth or literature, assembled secretly for fear of the Jews, 
and holding their little prayer-meetings, had been told by 
them that they expected to shake the kingdoms of the 
world, he would have said to them, " You ought to be put 
in a lunatic asylum." 

Paul foresaw that Christ's Church was to become a great 
powder; he had some conception of that power; but his mind 
could not compass it ; and he was obliged to say, " We can- 
not calculate the efiects of what we are attempting to do j 
we live by faith, and not by sight." What is faith ? Im-^ 
agination. We are living in the realm of the imagination^ 
16 



242 OUR CEVECH. 

in the ideal world, in the sphere of emotion ; but we know 
that we shall produce great results in time to come. 

When, now, young people are gathered into the Christian 
Church, one might stand outside and sav, " It is all well 
enough, but what does it amount to ? they are not going to 
be very much changed. They are examined, they join the 
Church, they perhaps behave themselves a little better at 
home, and that is about all there is of it ; '^ but Christ him- 
self tells us that the kingdom of God is like leaven, which a 
w^oman took and hid in three measures of meal. It is in- 
visible ; but nevertheless it is the most powerful of influ- 
ences. 

When you go on board one of those enormous steamers 
that are now flying across the deep, and performing in a 
week a journey that used to require five or six weeks, and 
look at its massive engines, it seems to you that they illus- 
trate the perfection of forces, and that the power which they 
exert is without a parallel ; and yet, if you were to go and 
look at the trees in yonder meadow or in some forest, and 
could measure their force, you would find that they beat 
those engines. A single tree, in drawing up sap to augment 
its trunk and develop its branches and unfold its leaves, 
exerts more physical power, silent and imperceptible though 
it be, than any one engine that ever was built was capa- 
ble of. 

Now, the work of God in the human heart is just as 
silent and just as imperceptible, and it is powerful beyond 
all comparison ; and though entering the Church of Christ 
does not seem to be very much now, call to mind the 
congratulations of the Apostle Paul to those who had come 
out of royal ceremonials into fellowship with the Saviour : 

"■ For ye are not come unto the mount that might be 



OUR CHURCH. 243 

touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and 
darkness, and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the 
voice of words ; which voice they that heard entreated that 
the word should not be spoken to them any more. But ye 
are come into Mount Sion, and unto tlie city of the living 
God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable com- 
pany of angels, to the general assembly and church of the 
firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge 
of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to 
Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of 
sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel." 

When a young person unites himself with the Church of 
Jesus Christ no banners are lifted, no trumpets are sounded, 
no dramatic ceremonies are gone through wnth; but he takes 
the first step along that airy highway which leads to the 
communion of all the dead that die in Christ Jesus. It is 
the portal of heaven to him. It is the beginning of a career 
that shall last in glory and blessedness as long as the 
gevernment of God himself shall last. Although there is no 
outward show, this inward beginning is destined to go on 
producing results through eternity. 

THE CHURCH AND TEMPERANCE. 

HE Church has intelligence, so also has she 
^ wealth. The thrift of the nation is within the 
j2 Church. The competency that waits on honest 
industry, and that renders domestic and social 
life happy — that competency is in the Church, as it 
is not outside the Church. As the valuation of Church 
property in this country is estimated at about three 
hundred and sixty millions, that is a fact which indicates 




244 ^'^^ CHUECii. 

that the thrift of the nation is within the Zion of our God. 
Here, then, is the material power wherewith to employ 
agents, to publish books, to erect temples, if necessary, to 
employ all the machinery for the advancement of the cause 
of total abstinence. And then the Church has the numeri- 
cal strength. Sixty thousand ordained ministers of the liord 
Jesus Christ are on the walls of Zion, each one of wliora 
should be a temperance lecturer — not merely once a year. 
I have no objection to have a temperance Sabbath designated 
for Chicago, New York, and Washington, but I say that 
every Sabbath in the year should be a temperance Sabbath. 
I do not believe in the segregation of the secular from the 
sacred. All things should be sacred to the man of God, and 
all things should be total abstinence to the friends of the 
temperance cause. Then, in addition to the sixty thousand 
ministers, whose Master said, " No drunkard shall inherit 
the kingdom of God," and who also commanded them to do 
unto others as they would have others do unto them — in ad- 
dition to these ministerial forces there are in this country 
seven millions of communicants in the Protestant churches, 
and I say that every man, woman and child of these seven 
millions should be solemnly pledged before God and his holy 
angels and before all the people to total abstinence. Yet 
this is not the case. Social drinking prevails. I rejoice 
that so many distinguished clergymen in all parts of the 
country are recognized leaders in the cause of total absti- 
nence. I rejoice that so many Christian men and women in 
all parts of the country are known as the earnest advocates 
of abstinence from all intoxicating liquors. Yet it is not too 
much to say that the custom of social drinking prevails in 
the Church of Christ. We must cast out this devil. We 
must cast him out, so that the temple of the Lord shall be 



OUE CHURCH. 245 

beautified with his presence. And then the Chur^^h, with so 
many ministers and so many members, exerts an influence 
over at least eighteen milUons of the population of this 
country. ' 

The Church has another element or another reformatory 
forcej and that is the ballot. But this has not been used to 
the maximum. Take it for granted that what the infidels 
say is true, that two- thirds of the membership of the Church 
are women. Very well. If we have seven millions, and 
two-thirds are women, then we have somewhere in the neigh- 
borhood of about tvv^o millions of men ; and it is fair to sup- 
pose that we have about a million and a half of voters in 
the Christian Church. But it is a sad f[ict that many who 
are enrolled in the Christian Church take but little interest 
in the political welfare of the country. Supposing the vot- 
ing population of this country is nine millions, and that in 
any general election the number of votes cast amounts to 
fiYQ millions and a half, say in round numbers six millions; 
then there are three millions who do not vote. Take, for 
example, the last general election, one of the most popular 
of the general elections in the history of the Republic, and 
three millions of the citizens of this country did not vote. 
Well, now, ladies and gentlemen, who were those that did 
not vote ? Were they the thieves, the gamblers, and the 
drunkards of New York, Buffalo, and Chicago? No; for 
the thieves, drunkards and gamblers always vote. You can 
always count on their vote in this city, but those who do not 
vote are those who are called respectable citizens. I hold 
that God has given the Church the political power to say 
who shall be those to administer the laws, and who shall 
make the laws j and if we have not a prohibitory law for the 



246 ^^^ CHURCH, 

State, the responsibility comes upon the Church of the living 
God. 

And th-e Church of God needs one more thing. She 
needs an addition to her creed: "I beUeve in the Holy 
Ghost, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, 
the forgiveness of sins, total abstinence from all intoxicating . 
liquor, the resurrection of the dead, and the life everlasting." 
And there vront be any resurrection of the dead in a moral 
sense until we get that into the creed. I would have not 
only an addition to the creed, but I would have such a 
Church discipline that would reach the citizen who rents his 
property for the manufacture or sale, retail or wholesale, of 
intoxicating liquor — I would have a Church discipline that 
would reach every tippler in the Church, and I would make 
total abstinence an absolute condition of Church member- 
ship. The truth is, we must grapple with this monster, and 
grapple with it with all the sanctities of law, and surround 
ourselves at the same time with all the muniments of eccle- 
^siastical law. The Church, then, needs first to assume this 
high ground of total abstuience, and, secondly, she needs an 
enthusiasm in the cause of sobriety — an enthusiasm that 
will inspire activity every day in the year; an enthusiasm 
that will touch tlie lips of sixty thousand ministers in our 
country with a temperance eloquence that will enable them 
to raise rhetoric in logic and metaphor into argument, and 
thrill the hearts of the people in f^ivor of total abstinence. 
We want an enthusiasm that will sanctify the family altar 
and the sacramental altar ; an enthusiasm that will send out 
the men, women and children from our Churches to follow 
in the footsteps of the Divine Master and go about doing 
good. 0, were I an artist, I would paint a picture of this 
grand army of Christian ministers in this country, sixty 



OUR CHURCH. 247 

thousand strong, and then this army of Christian men and 
women of seven millions, and then the greater army of 
eighteen millions of our citizens under the ministry of our 
Churches. Nay, were it in my power, I would have a living 
panorama and have them pass in review ; and it seems to 
me that we would lift our hands in holy clapping, for we 
would feel that' they were all consecrated to the cause of 
total abstinence, then the rum interest would go down, and 
go down forever. I am in favor of laws ; I believe in the 
limitations of law. I believe that the law of limitation is 
as universal as law itself I believe that the law of limita- 
tion binds the Pleiades and guides Arcturus. I believe that 
the law of limitation binds the waves of the deep, touches 
vegetation, and touches man ; and so long as I read in the 
Cosmos the limitation of law, and in the order and constitu- 
tion of nature that God has everywhere said, " Thus far 
shalt thou go, and no farther," so I must believe in the 
right, and beUeve in civil legislation as a means for the sup- 
pression of vice and for the development of virtue. 

I believe in organization outside of the Church — in Recha- 
bites, Jonadabs, Wideawakes, Red Ribbons, Blue Ribbons, 
White Ribbons, and all the ribbons in the rainbow — I be- 
lieve in them all. I believe in Francis Murphy, in Drew, 
and in Reynolds — let them all come ; but, I tell you, you 
will never suppress this giant evil until you get the Church 
right on the question. The elements of power are within 
the Qliuioh.— Bishop J. P. Newman. 



The mark is on the sheep , not on the field. 

— D7\ Thompaon. 



248 OUE CHURCH. 



THE CHURCH TO SAVE AMERICA. 

HOW me the Church that is willing to wash the feet of 
the degraded ; that goes about from house to house 
doing good; the Church organized for permanent, aggressive, 
audacious moral effect; the Church that has not lost its 
master's whip of small cords, and I will show you the 
Church, and the only Church, that can save America when 
it has two hundred inhabitants to the square mile. 

— Joseph Cook, 



OUR CHURCH OUR COUNTRY'S 
SAFEGUARD. 

'F we and our posterity shall be true to the 
Christian religion — if we and they shall live 
5^ always in the fear of God, and shall respect his 
commandments — if we and they shall maintain 
just moral sentiments, and such conscientious con- 
victions of duty as shall control the heart and life, 
we may have the highest hopes of the future fortunes 
of our country ; and if we maintain those institutions of 
government and that political union, exceeding all praise, as 
much as it exceeds all former examples of political associa- 
tions, we may be sure of one thing ; that, while our country 
furnishes materials for a thousand masters of the historic 
art, it will afford no topic for a Gibbon. It will have no 
decline and fall. It will go on prospering and to prosper. 

— Daniel Webster. 




OUR CHURCH, 



249 




KEEP THE CHURCH AND STATE 
FOREVER SEPARATED. 

ET us labor to add all needful guarantees for the 
most perfect security of free thought, free speech 
and free press, pure morals, unfettered religious 
sentiments^ and of equal rights and privileges to 
all men, irrespective of nationality, color or religion. 
Encourage free schools and resolve that not one dollar 
of money, appropriated for their support, be used for 
any sectarian school ; resolve that neither the State nor 
nation, or both combined, shall support institutions of learn- 
ing other than those sufficient to afford every child growing 
up in the land the opportunity of a good common school 
education, unmixed with sectarian, pagan or atheistic tenets. 
Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the Church 
and the private school, supported entirely by private con- 
tribution. Keep the Church and State forever separated. 

— Ulysses S. Grant. 



THE TRUE TEST OF A CHURCH. 

^HERE are tests many. When we look back upon 
\ the long history of the Church we often find the 
great body of believers thrust into many a new 
situation, and made to undergo unexpected or- 
deals. Sometimes the Church has come out of the 
fire with undisturbed life. Then, again, it has writhed 
in torture because of the superstitions and unworthy 
accretions which have come to if. On the other hand, for 




250 OUE cnvRCH. 

long periods it has advanced with steady step, conquered its 
foes on every hand, gained new territory, and gathered to 
itself a vast array of political and social forces. In the time 
of Gregory VII. it dominated over the so-called Holy Roman 
Empire, and made emperors do obeisance to its mandates. 
Daring the Reformation in central and northern Europe the 
Papacy burned martyrs in its struggle for a new lease of 
power, and resorted to many other forms of wickedness to 
conquer the new spiritual uprising. 

But, after all, was it really the Church which enacted all 
this wickedness ? No ; a thousand times no. Outwardly, it 
was the Church. It bore the name, assumed the functions, 
professed to teach the truth. But the real Church was in the 
background. It looked on, suffered with the sufferer, had 
boundless sympathies, and waited patiently for the dawn. 
AYho protested ? Who nailed the Ninety-five Theses to the 
door of the castle church in Wittenberg? The vital and 
praying Church. That was the real Church, though re- 
duced to a few individuals, and the men who wore papal 
robes and sold indulgences and persecuted the protesters 
were only the skeleton, in purple robes, gyrating its Dance 
of Death. 

When, therefore, the skeptic of these days proclaims the 
misdoings of the Church, its opposition to scientific advance, 
its persecutions of brave souls, its abuse of justice, its procla- 
mation of false doctrines, he makes a great mistake. It was 
the Church gone astray, drifting off from its ancient and firm 
moorings, and floating madly over quicksands. One might 
as well say that the ravings of mediaeval seekers of the 
philosopher's stone and their visions of indescribable wealth 
and the prophecies of Dr. Faustus were the schemes of an 
exact science, as to affirm that the ignorance of priests and 



UR CH UR cm 251 

the protests of the persecutors of Galileo were truly repre- 
sentative of the intelligence and the charity of the one true 
Church of God. The vital body of Christ's believing serv- 
ants, the pure but indivisible Church, is no more to be held 
accountable for the wrongs of false guides, than is the course 
of a noble merchantman which has been captured by pirates, 
steered by a bloody helmsman, and stored with . stolen silks 
and gold. 

Away, then, -with all this maligning of the Church of 
Christ because of flagrant historical deviations. The Church 
never deviated from its proper course, and was never any- 
thing but pure and progressive, except when in corsair 
hands. The time came, and sometimes long delayed, but 
still, it came, when the thieves were tossed into the sea, and 
God's servants walked the deck of the good vessel, and put 
her in the right direction for the sure and safe haven. 

History proves, therefore, that the appearance of power, 
the stores of wealth, and the vast array of numbers, are 
never the real test of either the purity or inner life of the 
Church of Christ. All these may exist, yet the apparent 
Church m.ay be sinning openly against God and man. 

The best way tx) arrive at a safe criterion of the active 
and living Church is to find out what kind of members it 
builds up. Sometimes a jewel is found in the mud, A 
child of genius comes now and then from the sheep-fold or 
the miner's hut. But come from whatever quarter, what 
does the Church do with such a child ? Does it let him care 
for himself and find his own way ? By no means. There 
has always been some one to whom God reveals the duty of 
opening the wa}^ for a poor child of great Christian destiny. 
In some instances it is the mother who has the best prophetic 
vision of all human beings. Susannah Wesley knew much 



252 OUR CHURCH. 

of the real future of her boys, John and Charles, when they 
were lads. Nothing else can explain the depth of her cor- 
respondence when they were at Oxford, and the seer-like 
training which she gave them even before they left the little 
Epworth rectory. In some instances this motherly care is 
denied the chosen little ones of God. But the helping-hand 
of a stranger then comes in to do the sublime service of 
prophecy. Frau Cotta, of Eisenach, was the elect one to 
help the little singing, cheerful Martin Luther to his des- 
tiny. The Sunday-school teacher who searched the grimy 
throng of urchins in the Seven Dials of London for scholars 
for his class was the one to help China to the greatest of all 
her missionaries, the immortal Morrison. 

Such discoveries, resulting from patient work for God, 
have been the law of Christian life from the beginning. 
When the Church can produce such spirits, who seek the 
helpless and bring them within the benign influence of Chris- 
tian teaching and training, and then develops those helpless 
ones into majestic characters, who preach the word with new 
power, and plant the truth on farther shores, and produce 
Christian hymns for future generations, and work out such 
great reforms as give a new face to the very globe, we find a 
test of the quality of the Church concerning which there can 
be no mistake. The hand which can achieve this victory 
has the strength of God to make it forceful. 

The proper and safe training of children we regard as the 
fundamental test of a Church. It might acquire wealth, 
establish missions, print a vast literature, rear educational 
institutions by the score, and lay magnificent humane foun- 
dations ; but if the Church could not train children for God's 
kingdom, watch over them with careful eyes, and build them 
up into stately temples for the divine indwelling, it would 



OUR CHUECH/ 253 

not be worthy of the holy and historic name which it bears. 
The work which it is doing in this line to-day far exceeds all 
former achievements. There is more discovery of minds in 
obscurity and extreme youth, more Christian care and cul- 
ture of them when discovered, and a prompt recognition of 
them when ready to w^ork upon the wide, needy w^orld, than 
ever before. Let every one know that the building up of a 
soul into the divine image, and the guiding it to a mastery 
in building others into the same harmony and majesty, is the 
greatest work performed by a human being. Compared to 
such immortal architecture, the rearing of the Strasburg 
Minster or the Cologne Cathedral is mere child's play. This 
is the true test of a Church — its power to create great lives. 
— The Christian Advocate. 



A CHRISTIAN. 

^^/^^ CHRISTIAN man is more than a sectarian. 
Paul, unrenewed, could be a Jew, but grace only 
could enlarge his fellowship to the whole race of 
men. A zealous member of this or that Church 
is not necessarily a Christian ; he may fall far short 
in dignity of character, breadth of fellowship, purity of 
heart, nobleness of purpose, excellence of life. Zeal for 
a sect is often mistaken for Christian earnestness, and devo- 
tion to Christ. There is a worldly, selfish power in it, which 
wins a certain kind of success, but it is not Christian success, 
does not make childlike men and women, does not save. 
There is more danger of being caught in this snare than is 
generally supposed ; more souls are deceived by mistaking 
love for a party and sect for love to Christ, than by any 



254 OUR en ur ch. 

other snare. Thousands '^ who have done many wonderful 
w^orks" in a partisan way, will stand at the left hand in the 
Day of Judgment. They think they do them in the name 
of Christj but Christ on their lips has a narrow, carnal mean- 
ing ; is degraded to be the leader of a sect, rather than the 
head of all saints. We must be Christians above all things 
else; more Christian than anything, else; so thoroughly 
Christian as to be nothing else ; then, wherever our lot may 
be cast, the power of Christ will rest upon us, and souls will 
be saved. — Baptist Union. 



FOUR THINGS CONSTITUTE A 
CHRISTIAN. 

I^OUR things are necessary to constitute a Christian. 
Faith makes a Christian ; life proves a Christian : 
trials confirm a Christian, and death crowns a Christian. 

— Hopfner, 



THE CHRISTIAN IS THE W^ORLD'S 

BIBLE. 

'he Christian is the world's Bible, and the only 

one that it reads. If we take care that in this 

3^ book be plainly shown the loving spirit, the 

grandeur, and the winning friendliness of Christ, 

then we shall see many hearts open to receive this 

7^ actual testimony of Christian life and suffering. For 

many of our opponents in secret envy us our Christian 

comfort in misfortune and under heavy losses. Their hearts 

are often stirred by a deep yearning after the support which 

bears us up; and this superiority of Christian life can often 




OUR CHURCH. 255 

drive tlie hardest heart to seek help of the Lord. In fine, 
only life can beget life. Where we wish to defend the Word 
of Life, our life cannot be separated from it, for the truth of 
Christianity is the true Christian — the man filled with the 
spirit of Christ. The best means of bringing the world to a 
belief in miracles is to exhibit the miracle of regeneration, 
and its power in our own life. The best proof of Christ's 
resurrection is a living Church, which is itself walking in 
new life, and drawing life from him who has overcome 
death. Before such arguments ancient Rome herself, the 
mightiest Empire of the world, and the most hostile to 
Christianity, could not stand. Let us live in like manner, 
and then, though hell should have a shortlived triumph, 
eventually must be fulfilled what St. Augustine says : 
'' Love is the fulfilling of the truth." 

Already the world is beginning to be divided into great 
camps of the unbelieving and the faithful. In many unbe- 
lief has probably become incurable. Before such we can 
only confess the truth for a testimony against them. The 
anti-Christ, who denies Father and Son, can be destroyed, 
not by men, but only by the Lord in the brightness of his 
coming. But the holy task that falls to the lot of every 
Christian is to continue to do battle for the truth after the 
measure of his strength, in the power of that victory which 
Christ has already gained for us, and which he has prom- 
ised one day to complete. May not onl}^ individuals, but 
may every Protestant people recognize that it ought to con- 
tribute its special gift toward the great world-apology for 
Christianity ; Germany, her deep and earnest science ; Eng- 
land, her trustful meditation on Scriptures, her faithfulness 
in pastoral work, her open-handed charity; America, her 
energetic activity, her fearlessness in public testimony for the 



256 ^^^ CHURCH. 

truth, her indelible love of freedom ; and all others, great or 
small, the talent intrusted to them. If all others unite in 
holy zeal for God, the victory cannot vranting. Forward, 
then, my brethren, and let us not weary of the strife. 
Our field of battle is the wade world, our aim the honor of 
God, our support amid strife and suffering the certainty 
that our faith already is the victory which hath overcome 
the world.— Pro/. Theo, Christleib, 



THE CHRISTIAN SYSTEM OF 
CHRONOLOGY SUPREME. 

lESUS CHRIST IS the King and basis of human 
CHRONOLOGY. I mean by this, that Jesus Christ 
has gotten himself into the warp and woof of 
earthly history; has become so vitally identified 
ith all human dates, and reckonings, and registers, 
and laws, and commerce, and business, that he is now 
essential to human civilization and history. So long as 
the world stands and the seasons continue; so long as 
nations and society retain their present order and constitu- 
tion, Jesus Christ will hold the sceptre and wear the crown 
of universal Lordship to the joy of his Church and the 
dismay of his enemies. Aside from the actual, personal 
•witness of the Holy Ghost to the human spirit, I find one 
of the completest and most irrefragable demonstrations of 
the Lordship of Jesus Christ in the two letters '^A. D.," 
which we use in all our business, and literature, and civiliza- 
tion ; and it is the privilege of the humblest Christian to 
show these men who reject the Bible and laugh at Christian 




OUR CHURCH. 257 

experience, that they have to bow the knee to Jesus of 
Nazareth, and confess his Lordship every day, and in each 
business act of life. This fact can be quickly shown, so 
that the dullest intellect, or the most unwilling skepticism 
must confess it. The chronological terms "A." and "D." 
are abbreviations of the Latin words "Anno " and " Domini '* 
— year and Lord. "Anno Domini" means Year of Our 
Lord. "A. D., 1878," means Year of Our Lord, 1878. 

Let me now assert, that the accepted Christian chronology 
is the only one that will bear the test of reason, or meet and 
support the wants and facts of civilization and history. All 
the systems of chronology which have ever been used before, 
since, or in opposition to the Christian, have failed and been 
cast aside, while the Christian system has become impreg- 
nably incorporated into the customs, calculations, commerce 
and civilization of the race, in such a way that it can 
never be superseded or materially modified. Astronomers, 
geologists and ethnologists construct speculative chronologies 
occasionally. No one enjoys them better than I do ; they 
are often very ingenious, amusing, stimulating and profitable. 
I saw a scientific lecturer once (in the Boston Lowell Insti- 
tute course) demonstrate on the black-board, from the 
character of the Niagara river gorge, that the cataract had 
been thundering down those rocks for 448,000 or 448,000,000 
years ; I have forgotten whether it was thousands or mil- 
lions. I do not care which it was ; it makes no difference 
to the Bible student. If he had needed 448,000,000 of 
times 448,000,000 of years, centuries or millenniums, to cut 
the Niagara gorge out properly, we could have furnished 
them from the Bible record, and then have had substantial 
forms to spare for any other essential or ornamental work of 
that kind. 

17 



258 OUR CHURCH, 

We read in books of astronomy, of stars which have just 
reported themselves to us by star beams, which, travelling 
at the rate of 192,000 miles per second, have just got in 
after a journey of 5,000,000 years through the depth of 
space. These amazing longevities do not trouble the Bible 
student at all. They bring him a little nearer the tre- 
mendous thought of the lifetime of the Almighty. He can- 
not comprehend them now, but by and by he will master 
geological and astronomical dates and periods as easily as 
he can minutes and days by his watch or hour-glass now. 
We have no dispute with true science, none whatever. Its 
chronologies are purely speculative ; they have nothing to 
do with us in our human and moral relations ; we do not 
date letters, or trade or travel by them. Jesus Christ has 
no dispute with geology, or astronomy, ethnology, or any of 
the sciences. 

Let out the links of the scientific chain until the wildest 
hypothesis is satisfied. These bewildering periods are as 
pulse-beats in comparison with the lifetime of Jesus Christ, 
who is the Alpha and the Omega of geology, and astronomy, 
and all the rest of the sciences. We are in perfect sympathy 
with science so long as it is scientific and reverent ; but when 
it asks us to slip our chronological cable from the throne of 
Christ, and cast it out for a scientific hypothesis, we decline 
with good-natured contempt ; for we prefer a safe anchorage 
ground to the shifting sands of scientific hypothesis. 

There are a number of heathen, mythological and classical 
chronologies, also, which have had a faint showing in history. 
Babylonian fable imagines 432,000 j-ears of Babylonian 
antiquity and splendor. Chinese books claim 64,000 years 
before the birth of their first emperor. Phoenician tradition 
boasted 30,000 years for itself. ' Hindu chronologies, under 



O UR CH UR CH. 259 

Brahminical cvpherings, give extravagant antiquities. They 
talk of their four primitive ages, or Yugas : the first, 
1,728,000 years; the second, 1,296,000; the third, 864,000; . 
the fourth and present, 432,000, of which 5,000 or 6,000 
are ah^ady past. These four give a sum total of 4,320,000 
years. They have stiil longer periods, Kalpas, 4,320,000 
years each. But these are all fabulous periods. We do not 
date letters or do business with them ; nobody does. 

Then we have several historical epochs and eras, which 
were once in use. 

The old Greeks, beginning with July 1, B. c. 776, reckoned 
time by Olympiads — periods of four years. Once in four 
years they celebrated the Olympic games, and for three or 
four hundred years they made this their reckoning date. 
But the Olympiad system broke down when the Greek 
nationality was destroyed, and the Greeks had no suitable 
epoch for their history any longer. The ancient Eomans 
used the year of the founding of Rome — A. u. c, "Anno 
Urbis Conditse." They reckoned from that epoch for several 
centuries, but after a while that broke dow^n. Mohammedans 
reckoned time by " hegiras," making the flight of Mahomet 
their chronological epoch. 

French infidelity in the great revolution wnped out the 
Christian era by an edict of the national convention, and 
opened a new world epoch dating from itself It pompously 
dated its decrees as of the year 1. That atheistic farce 
lasted only a few months. But all of these epochs have gone 
out of date. Somehow, humanity has outgrown them all. 
None of them ever fitted the race or met the wants of man. 
They were local and temporary expedients ; none of them 
had world- and race-organizing power. 

One thousand eight hundred and seventy years ago a 



260 ^^^ CHURCR. 

young Jewish woman gave birth to a babe in the village of 
Bethlehem, in Palestine. She called his name Jesus. Some 
thirty-three years later this Jesus was crucified between two 
wretched thieves, on Mount Calvary, amid the scoffs and 
curses of the civilized v/orld. To-day, and for these 1,850 
years, the birth date of that Jewish babe has been the 
epochal date of human chronology, history, and civilization. 
Mythologies, heathen calendars, Yugas, Kalpas, Olympiads, 
city foundings, hegiras, all, all have lost their meaning, but 
the Bethlehem manger and the Yirgin-born babe have re- 
vised, fixed, and perfected the chronometry of the race and 
the world ! Can any one deny this fact ? And who can 
admit or explain it without yielding Lordship to the Man of 
Nazareth ? Why does not the world reckon time from the 
birth of Confucius, or Buddha, or Socrates, or Homer, or 
Julius Caesar, or Constantine, or Mahomet, or Bonaparte, or 
Voltaire? VYhy ? Because there is but one name in this 
universe that is strong enougli to balance the ages upon 
itself without breaking down under the load ! Why ? Be- 
cause there is no name but the name of Jesus that can gather 
all definite data of man, philosophy, and nations, and crys- 
talHze them into symmetry and logical significance about 
itself! Why? Because "God has highly exalted Jesus, and 
given him a name which is above every name ; that at the 
name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, 
and things on the earth, and things under the earth, and 
that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, 
to the glory of God the Father." Surely this divine purpose 
has had its literal fulfilment in the facts which I have 
already named. The name of Jesus is above every name. 
Its memorial is set in the sun and in the stars and in the 
seasons. It has become the reckoning date of laws, and 



OUR CHURCH, 261 

trade, and literature, and science, and history, so that it can 
never be pulled down, or blotted out, or obscured. Things 
have gone on so far that no change is possible. The name 
of Jesus is the motto of human society and of time so long 
as the world stands. Strauss, and Renan, and Parker, 
Emerson, and Frothingham must keep step, living or dying, 
to the time and tune of the Lordship of Jesus Christ — they 
cannot help themselves. 

Suppose that you wished to locate Confucius in history, 
you must say born B. c. 551, died B. c. 479 ; or Buddha, you 
must say born about the sixth century before Christ; 
Socrates, Homer, Alexander, born b. c. — ; or Yoltaire, born 
A. D. — , died A. D. — . Gibbon's " History of Rome," in 
which he thrusts so spitefully at the divinity of Jesus and 
Christianity, is woven upon chronology which centres upon 
Christ. The date of the Creation is wholly problematical ; 
so is the date of the flood. These dates have no intelligible 
relations to human history except through the Bethlehem 
babe and manger. The first reliable epoch is the Christian. 
You could not get any reliable trace of any good or bad man 
of antiquity except as they borrow light from Jesus Christ 
in which to show themselves. Voltaire, Strauss, Paine, and 
Ingersoll are each dependent upon him for a foothold in 
history. 

Not one of these fighters against Jesus could find his own 
birthday if it was not linked in with the name that they 
hate and deny so bitterly. The ^^ Radical" writes: "The 
Christs belong to a dead epoch ; this age has no further use 
for them," and refutes its own spiteful falsehood by stamping 
upon its title-page a confession of Christ's divinity — "A. D. 
1870.'* It could not get upon a bookstand but through the 



262 ^ u^ ^^ ^'^ ^^• 

influence of Jesus Christ, and it is not strange that its 
blasphemy sent it into speedy beggary and death. 

Mr. Frothinghatn writes a book to say that '^ Jesus, the 
Incarnate, is an old myth ; " and in order to get that book 
copyrighted, or into the world of trade, he has to get down 
upon his knees before the divinity of Jesus, and write upon 
its title-page : '' Entered according to Act of Congress, A. D. 
1872." " The Year of Ow^ Lord 1872 ! " 

Warrington wrote : '• Jesus as the Son of God, in any 
peculiar sense, is on the defensive in the Boston Radical 
Club," superscribed his letter with A. D., " The Year of Our 
Lord." Why, the members of that club could not appoint a 
supper without confessing the Lordship of Jesus. 

Dr. 0. W. Holmes writes, squarely charging that Jesus is 
a hopeless bankrupt, and jefutes the thoughtless babble by 
dating his letter February, 1873 — "Year of Our Lord!" 
This poor raving blasphemer, Ingersoll, could not print a 
tract, or publish a lecture, or make an appointment of any 
kind without confessing the Lordship of Jesus. Do these 
men ever think of this fact ? But they cannot help them- 
selves. The Jews came to Pilate, and said. Take down that 
superscription ; don't say he is King of the Jews, but say, 
he says he is King of the Jews. You are too late, too late, 
said Pilate. What I have written, I have written ; and 
Christ's Lordship was published by his own murderers, 
on his own cross. 

" Jesus is not the Lord, Jesus is not the Lord," these poor 
self- worshipping men say, but each time they say it they 
have to go down upon their knees before his Lordship as 
published in that indestructible "Anno Domini," by which 
God has highly exalted him, and " given him a name which 
is above every name in heaven or in earth." 



OUR CHURCH, 263 

What a jubilee atheists and unbelievers would have if 
they could but reconstruct chronology and get a new epoch 
for civilization. Oh, if they could only get rid of that hated 
"Anno Domini;" but they cannot do it. As soon might a 
bat, covering the figure twelve on the face of a town clock, 
say, " I have blotted out the sun, and annihilated noon and 
time," as for these men to try to cover up the Lordship of 
Jesus with their vapors and fogs of unbelief 

How it must gall their self-conceit to keep saying '' Our 
Lord! Our Lord!" But they must do it, there is no help 
for them ; that thing is settled for this world at least. We 
cannot write a letter, or print a paper, or publish a book, or 
a notice without confessing the Lordship of Jesus. We can- 
not give or collect a note, we cannot sell a yoke of oxen, or 
buy a house, or mortgage a farm ; we cannot be born, or 
marry, or be buried without bowing the knee to the Lord 
Jesus Christ. No law of town. State, or nation is valid 
which does not bow to Jesus. Governors' messages, emanci- 
pation proclamations, and Presidential inaugurals all salute 
Jesus Christ as King of chronology — " Given in this year of 
Our Lord 1878." All civilized nations have adopted the 
birthday of Jesus as their epoch, and all heathen nations 
are doing the same. The Sandwich and Fiji Islands, Mada- 
gascar, Japan, China, Lidia, Africa, are wheeling into line in 
the trail of the Star of Bethlehem, and saluting the Lordship 
of Jesus Christ, " the Alpha and the Omega." And in this 
single fact of earth's chronologies all centring upon the 
birthday of Jesus of Nazareth I find a very remarkable 
illustration of the truth of the text and of the Lordship of 
Jesus. 

I have never yet heard an infidel solution of this fact. 
We are not called upon to • defend Jesus Christ from their 



264 OUE CHURCH, 

wild assaults until they have invented a new epoch for the 
world. 

Some of the old gods of fable and mythology have given 
their names to the months and days of the week, b,ut these 
are in no sense epoch-marks. They are simply trophies 
chained to the chariot- wheels of the victorious Nazarene. 
Let our frantic and noisy revilers of Christ invent a new 
chronological epoch, or stop boasting of their tremendous 
consequence. — Rev. J. G. BidwelL 



THE HAND OF GOD IN MODERN 
MISSIONS. 



WOULD like to direct your minds to the won- 
derful ways in which the pillar of Providence has 
^ gone before the missionary bands, and opened 
doors great and effectual with the most startling 



'€VJ 



?^^^-^ rapidity ; and how obstacles insurmountable to mere 
^S. human power have vanished before the onward march 
f of the Church in the honest attempt to evangelize the 
world. Take, for instance, a single fact in regard to the 
condition of woman. In olden times she was never placed 
upon equality with man. Look at her, bending under the 
burden imposed by a ruthless taskmaster in an uncivilized 
age ; see her the slave of her lord, shut up in the seraglios 
and harems of the East, unapproachable by Christian influ- 
ences. Look at the daughters of India, unwelcome at birth, 
untaught in childhood, enslaved when married, accursed as 
w^idows, and unlamented when they die, and think at this 
present day that there are 1,200 seraglios open to the minis- 
trations of the Christian women of one single organization, 



H 
O 







OUR CHURCH, 265 

anxious to save their sisters in foreign lands. One hundred 
years ago what was the condition of the world ? Japan had 
closed her ports for three hundred years. China was liter- 
ally walled in. The islands of Polynesia were sunk in idol- 
atry and degradation, and you would not have been able to 
put your foot on them without danger of being devoured by 
these cannibal savages. Look at Africa fifty years ago, the 
whole interior unexplored, as much removed from us as if 
on another planet ; now see to what an extent her popula- 
tion have been brought to Christianity and civilization. The 
banner of the Cross has been carried into the very heart of 
the continent by the bands of missionaries of the Cross. 
Look at the persecution of the Christians in Madagascar for 
twenty-five years ; yet, wonderful to relate, the* Church of 
Christ has grown stronger in Madagascar than it was before 
the persecution began ; and at last, the modern Christian 
Church is able to find shelter under the hospitality of a 
Christian government. That seems to me to be one of the 
grandest triumphs of the Gospel. We can only hint at a 
few of the marvels that have been accomplished; but in 
these there is just as plainly a supernatural interposition as 
there was in the moving of the pillar of cloud before Israel, 
or in the prostration of the walls of Jericho. It is all in 
harmony with the Scripture promise, and shows the power 
of faith in the divine interposition of a great and all-wise 
and all-powerful God. — Rev. Arthur T. Plerson. 

HEAD-QUARTERS OF THE CHURCH. 

fHE head-quarters of Christ's Church is at the right hand 
of God, where Christ, the Head over all things to the 
Church, sitteth. His Church is a body with but one 



266 



OUR CHURCH. 



head; those many-headed creatures of which the Scriptures 
speak are emblems of earthly confusion rather than of di- 
vine order and ordination. Our Saviour bids us come boldly 
to his presence; and when there we are at head-quarters; 
and in submitting ourselves to him we are yielding to an 
authority higher than that of priest or prelate, the authority 
of One into whose hands all power in heaven and in earth 
is committed. — The Ghristian. 



A CALL FOR V/ORKERS. 



UR country's voice is pleading, 

Ye men of God, arise ! 
His providence is leading, 

The land before you lies ; 
Day-gleams are o'er it brightening. 

And promise clothes the soil ; . 
Wide fields for harvest whitening 

Invite the reaper's toil. 




Go where the waves are breakins: 

On California's shore, 
Christ's precious gospel taking, 

More rich than golden ore ; 
On Allegheny's mountains. 

Through all the w^estern vale, 
Beside Missouri's fountains 

Rehearse the wondrous tale. 



The love of Christ unfolding, 
Spread on from east to west, 
Till all, his cross beholding, 
. In him are fully blest. 




OUR CHURCH. 267 

Great Author of salvation, 

Haste, baste the glorious day, 
When \ve a ransomed nation 
Thy sceptre shall obey. 

—Ilrs. Anderson. 

CHRIST'S CHURCH SHOULD LOOK UP. 

'liURCH of the living God! the Master says: 
"Look up." Do you ask me why? The soul- 
^3 inspiring answer is, ^' because your redemption 
draweth nigh." Yes ; eternal redemption at the 
putting on of immortaUty at Christ's glorious ap- 
pearing. 

Now the bowed head is the symbol of sorrow, but the 
up-lifted head betokens joy : " Look up and lift up your 
heads," he commands. Or, as one renders it, " Raise your- 
selves and lift up your heads." Or, as Wickliffe phrases it, 
" Behold ye and raise ye your heads." Looking down begets 
weakness and savors of " the earth, earthy." Looking up 
inspires courage, hope, and might, indicates the watchful 
spirit, and tells the world that the heart is in heaven, from 
whence you expect the Deliverer. You cannot fail to do this 
without proving disobedient to the Lord. " Raise your- 
selves, droop no longer^ arise and be strong, have certain 
knowledge of the approach of the great day ! " he cries. Will 
you do it ? For centuries the bride of the Lamb has been a 
prey to death. Her foes have been countless, sleepless, and 
unrelenting; she walking her bloody, lonely path with 
bowed head and eyes cast down in sorrow. The grave has 
ever been before her, yawning to devour. But as if in 
expectation of a strong deliverer from the skies she has 



268 OUR C RUBOR. 

buried her dead with their faces turned upward, and the eyes 
in the right direction — up. Tfiese on opening at his bidding 
shall catch speedily the sight of the descending King. For 
the trumpet shall sound, and the good, translated skyward 
to meet him, shall then be like him forever. Now he is soon 
to arrive. We have witnessed the predicted signs. We know 
the proper and plainly revealed final position, — let us take 
it. It is the posture of expectant joy. It is the glorious 
privilege as well as the sacred duty of the last generation -of 
Christians, to go about with their heads lifted up. It will be 
their happy privilege to stand at the bar of judgment with 
their heads lifted up, for the shame of sin will be exchanged 
for the boldness of holiness. It will be theirs to march 
through the golden gates with their heads up. " Thou, 
Lord, art a shield for me, my glory, and the lifter up of 
my head." Christians, can we afford to become guilty by 
disregarding the express orders of our King in refusing at 
the proper time to look toward the door of the heavenly 
tabernacloj about to swing back on its hinges and let forth 
the Bridegroom ? The time has assuredly come. In the 
broad clear light of the breaking day there is no excuse for 
the recreant, the indifferent, the cold-hearted. 

What an unfailing well of joy in trial ; what a source 
of strength against the forces of sin and evil, what a 
weapon of warfare against Satan, this belief would every- 
where prove to the dear Church of God, if she would but 
open her eyes and perceive and embrace it. What an all- 
absorbing joy, what an unfailing hope as the conflict deep- 
ens, and the fierce, evil powers enhance its intensity. The 
great heart of Christendom would be stirred with a mighty 
gladness ; an exultant shout would ring out through all the 
camp of the weary hosts -, the enemy would hear the plan of 



OUR CHURCH. 269 

victory sounded in advance, while the multitudes of believ- 
ers, united in the " one hope," would be engirded as with 
invincible strength from the everlasting arm of the Almighty. 
Then lift the head, weary watcher. Turn ths eyes to per- 
ceive the angel couriers of the returning Redeemer. With 
ears intent, w^ait to catch the first signal of the mighty 
trumpet's blast. Look up, behold it soundeth speedily, and 
the bell that marks the incoming of eternity is about to 
strike, One ! To the last minute do as the Lord bids, and 
look up. Keep the head erect, and with it the heart clean, 
if at the end you would be " caught up to join the Lord in 
the air." Waiters, watchers, w^orkers. Heads up ! 

—D. T. Taylor, 



SOUL-HUNGER OF THE CHURCH. 

^^^,^OUL-HUNGER is everywhere leading the 
^^^ churches to remarkable activity in the different 
^^/j departments of religious labor. Under the stim- 
^^^4 ulus of this hunger the flocks are ready to follow 
'p4 their shepherds to any work and to any sacrifice. 

p^ Let the pastors suggest that what is needed is a fine 
church edifice, and the members generally are ready to 
give all they can, and bear the more annoying burden of 
hopeless indebtedness to secure the needed object. Pride 
may underlie the action of a few, but soul-hunger moves the 
mass of the membership in the enterprise. 

Let the Church leaders intimate that fine music and fine 
preaching are the wants of the Church, and all possible ef- 
forts and sacrifices are at once made to secure them. And 
these address the aesthetic in human nature, excite intellect- 



270 



OUR CEURCS, 



ual pleasure, and afford a kind of gratification, whicli many 
mistake for religious experience, and from what they see and 
hear, they conclude that these are the highest pleasure's 
which the gospel offers ; knowing of nothing better for their 
souls, they continue from year to year to bear these heavy 
burdens for the privilege of feeding upon these things, proper 
in their place, but dry and worthless husks to souls famish- 
ing for the bread of life. The same may be said of all the 
other enterprises of the Church, which should have their 
proper place, but which have been unfortunately, in too 
many cases, substituted for spiritual religion. 

When some one, " full of faith and the Holy Ghost," en- 
ters these congregations and preaches the Gospel, not with 
enticing v/ords of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the 
Spirit and power, the people immediately discern their true 
wants, and the nature of the hunger which has stimulated 
their religious labors. As soon as they get a taste of the 
pure word of life they crowd the churches, not to be enter- 
tained by the beautiful in composition, or the eloquent in 
diction, or the cultured in music, but " to behold the beauty 
of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple." And if their 
leaders will go before, or even get out of the way, the body 
of the churches will march up out of the wilderness and pass 
over into the land of promise. God's people all over the 
land, and in all the churches, are ready for a forward move- 
ment; the wants of the hour are Joshuas, to give orders and 
lead the way. 

If these remarks are just — and all acquainted with the 
facts know they are — it is fearful to contemplate the account 
which the clergy of to-day will have to confront in the final 
judgment. Oh, that all the spiritual guides of the people 
understood the situation, felt their responsibility, would take 



OUR CHURCH. 



271 



advantage of this hunger, and lead the people on to life and 
victory. — Sheridan Baher. 




THE CHURCH W^ATCHINQ. 

ORD, her watch thy Church is keej)iiig; 

When shall earth thy rule obey ? 
When shall end the night of weeping? 

When shall break the promised day ? 
See the whitening harvest languish, 

Waiting still the laborer's toil ; 
Was it vain, thy Son's deep anguish ? 

Shall the strong retain the spoil? 



Tidings sent to every creature. 

Millions yet have never heard ; 
Can they hear without a preacher ! 

Lord Almighty, give the Word : 
Give the Word ; in every nation 

Let the Gospel-trumpet sound, 
Witnessing a world's salvation 

To the earth's remotest bound. 



Then the end : Thy Church completed, 

All the chosen gathered in. 
With their King in glory seated, 

Satan bound, and banished sin ; 
Gone forever, parting, weeping, 

Hunger, sorrow, death, and pain • 
Lo! her watch thy Church is keeping; 

Come, Lord Jesus, come to reign. 

— Henry Downton. 



272 



OUR CHURCH. 




THE CHURCH AATAITINQ^ 

HE Church has waited long, 
Her absent Lord to see ; 
J And still in loneliness she waits, 
A friendless stranger she. 
Age after age has gone, 
Sun after sun has set, 
And still, in weeds of widowhood, 
She weeps, a mourner yet. 
Come, then, Lord Jesus, come! 

Saint after saint on earth 

Has lived and loved and died; 
And as they left us one by one. 

We laid them side by side. 

We laid them down to sleep, 

But not in hope forlorn ; 
We laid them but to ripen there, 

Till the last glorious morn. 

Come, then. Lord Jesus, come. 

The serpent's brood increase, 

The powers of hell grow bold. 
The conflict thickens, faith is low, 

And love is waxing cold. 

How long, O Lord, our God ! 

Holy and true and good, 
Wilt Thou not judge Thy suffering Church, 

Her sighs and tears and blood ? 

Come, then. Lord Jesus, come. 

We long to hear Thy voice, 
To see Thee face to face. 



OUR CHURCH. 



273 



To share Thy erown and glory then, 

As now we share Thy grace. 

Should not the loving bride 

Her absent bridegroom mourn? 
Should she not wear the signs of grief 

Until her Lord return ? 

Come, then, Lord Jesus, come. 

The whole creation groans, 

And waits to hear tliat voice, 
That shall restore her comeliness, 

And make her wastes rejoice. 

Come, Lord, and wipe away 

The curse, the sin, the stain, 
And make this blighted world of ours 

Thine own fair world again. 

Come, then. Lord Jesus, come. 

— Horatinus Bonar, 



THE CHURCH'S LAST TESTIMONY. 

VHE Church from the first has been God's witness 
Ji upon earth, and when her testimonj^ shall have 
^ heen fully delivered the end will come, and the 
dispensation will be closed. The ripeness of the 
Church will be when it shall have witnessed for all 
the truths w^hich are to be opposed by the heretical and 
the infideh Already has the protest been uttered on 
behalf of those doctrines, referring both to man and the 
Mediator, w^hich are nothing less than the life's blood of 
Christianity. If you trace heresy downward, from the 
Apostles' days to our own, you find it fastening itself suc- 
cessively on the several truths of our faith, so that there is 

18 




274 ^'UR CHURCH. 

scarce a fraction which has not been assaulted, and in de- 
fence of which, the Church has not shown itself a witness. 
What then remains to the rendering the Church fully ripe? 
We find from the Scriptures that one great feature of the 
last times shall be disbelief or denial of the second Advent 
of Christ. As in other days of the dispensation, so, in the 
concluding, there shall be abroad the covetous, the blas- 
phemers, the traitors, the high-minded, and all those mani- 
festations of evil which have ever called forth the protest 
of the Church. But, over and above these forms of wicked- 
ness, scorners shall be walking the earth, arguing, from the 
apparent fixedness of things, of the improbability of Christ's 
interference, and tauntingly asking : " Where is the promise 
of his coming ? " Here, it may be, will be the last and most 
energetic demand on the witness. The Church must oppose 
itself to this new and desperate infidelity. She must pro- 
test for the Advent of the Lord against the denial and 
reviling of a profligate generation. And when the Church 
shall have done this, witnessed that Christ is about to re- 
appear, and invoked a scoffing world to prepare for his 
approach, then, it may be, will her perfect ripeness be 
reached, and then, in accordance with the parable, the fruit 
being brought forth, Christ shall " immediately put in the 
sickle," gather in the corn, and house his elect, ere venge- 
ance be let loose on the impenitent and unbelieving. 

— Henry Melvill, 



The Church below is often in a suffering state. Christ 
himself was a man of sorrows; nor should his bride be a 
wife of pleasure. 

— Dr. Arrowsmifh. 



VR CH UE CH. 275 



W^ATCH^W^ORD OF THE CHURCH. 






H, brethren, the times are very evil, the days are 
very perilous unto us all. I would it were not 
so ; but we have well deserved the evil at the 
Lord's hand. The Lord is righteous; yea, the 
Lord is merciful and gracious, who hath not utterly 
extinguished us, and put us out from being a nation.' 
But, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, 
God never leaveth himself without a witness ; his Church 
will not be prevailed against by all the gates of hell. 
Though the spirits from the mouth of the dragon, and from 
the mouth of the beast, and from the mouth of the false 
prophet be all flown abroad, there is a word, a word of 
power, which can preserve the Church. 

And what is that word of mighty power? It is not that 
with which Christ withstood Satan's first assault : " Man 
liveth not by bread alone, but by every word of God." That 
word might be proper to the Church in her jirst ages, w^hen 
she was driven from house and home by the persecutions of 
paganism. . Nor is it that word which withstood and de- 
feated Satan's second temptation when he tempted the Lord 
with the kingdoms of the world and the glories of them. 
" Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt 
thou serve ; " which might be proper, as some have thought, 
to the second period of the Church, when she was tempted 
with the co-fraternity and co-habitation of that power of the 
kings of the earth, with which they had heretofore afflicted 
her. Nor is it the word with which he defeated the third 
temptation of Satan, beguiling him to take liberties with the 



276 ^ ^^ CHURCH 

word of God, and to wrest it unto his own convenient uses — 
" Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God " — and which may 
well be thought proper to the third, or Protestant age of the 
Church, during which and amongst whom the word of God 
hath been made the tool of the human intellect, to answer 
the expedient interests and temporal ends of men. No ; 
these three words which were powerful to meet each its 
proper and several temptations of Satan are not able to meet 
and overcome the combined and confederate attempts of the 
three spirits which have gone forth together from the mouth 
of the dragon, and of the beast, and of the false prophet. 

And what, then, is that word of mightiest power, which 
is to prove the bulwark of the Church against the gates of 
hell ? The Lord himself hath told it in its place where the 
procession of these evil spirits is declared, for no sooner had 
the seer seen them go forth than there was lifted up this 
voice in his hearing : '^Behold, I come as a tliief ; blessed is 
he that watcheth and keepeth his garments, lest he walk 
naked and they see his shame." 

I believe this spirit of the last times, w^hich is the com- 
bined mixture and expressed strength of all the others — 
violence, seduction, and delusion — can be resisted by that 
mighty word, '^Behold I come I " The faith of this word will 
prevail to establish the foundations in these perilous times 
against the gates of hell. This I believe; and I believe, 
moreover, that no other word will prevail to do it. And 
the thing which stirs my hope is, that the truth is not 
preached unto this nation ; and the thing that stirs my fears 
is, that it findeth welcome with so few. Nevertheless, if 
you be appointed unto salvation, the Lord's will be done. I 
would rather that it had been many, but the Lord's will be 
done. — Edward Irving, 



OUR CHURCH. 



277 




THE CHURCH TRIUMPHANT. 



SAW, and lo ! a countless throng, 

Th' elect of every nation, name, and tongue, 
Assembled round the everlasting Throne; 
With robes of white endued. 
The Righteousness of God ; 
And each a palm sustained 
In his victorious hand ; 
When thus the bright melodious choir begun • 

"Salvation to Thy Name, 
Eternal God, and co-eternal Lamb ! 
In power, in glory, and in essence, One ! " 



So sung the Saints. Th' Angelic train 
Second the anthem with a loud Amen 
(These in the outer circle stood, 

The saints were nearest God) ; 
And prostrate fall, with glory overpowered, 

And hide their faces with their wings, 

And thus address the King of kings: 
"All hail ! by Thy Triumphant Church adored ! 

Blessing and thanks and honor too. 
Are Thy supreme. Thy everlasting due, 
Our Triune Sovereign, our propitious Lord !'' 



While I beheld th' amazing sight, 
A Seraph pointed to the Saints in white. 
And told me who they were, and whence they came; 
" These are they, whose lot below 

Was persecution, pain, and woe; 

These are the chosen, purchased Flock, 

Who ne'er their Lord forsook ; 



278 ^^^ CHUECH. 

Through His imputed merit free from blame; 

Redeemed from every sin ; 
And, as thou seest, whose garments were made clean, 
Washed in the Blood of yon exalted Lamb. 

Saved by His Righteousness alone, 

Spotless they stand before the Throne, 
And in the etheral Temple chant His praise : 

Himself among them deigns to dwell, 

And face to face His Light reveal : 

Hunger and thirst, as heretofore, 
And pain, and heat, they know no more, 
Nor need, as once, the sun's prolific rays. 

Immaimel here His people feeds. 

To streams of joy perennial leads, 
And wipes, forever wipes, the tears from every face. 

Happy the souls released from fear, 

And safely landed there ! 

Some of the shining number once I knew, 

And travelled with them here : 
Nay, some, my elder brethren now, 
Set later out for Heaven, my junior saints below; 
Long after me, they heard the call of Grace, 
Which walked them unto Righteousness ; 

How have they got beyond ? 
Converted last, yet first with glory crowned ; 

Little, once, I thought that these 

Would first the summit gain. 
And leave me far behind, slow journeying through the plain. 

Loved while on earth ! nor less belov'd, tho' gone ! 

Think not I envy you your crown : 
No ! if I could, I would not call you down ! 

Though slower is my pace, 

To you I'll follow on, •■ . - 



OUB CHURCH.- 279 

Leaning on Jesus all the way ; 
Who, now and then, lets fall a ray 

Of comfort from His Throne ; 

The shinings of His grace 
Soften my passage through the wilderness ; 
And vineSj nectareous, spring where briers grew. 

The sweet unveilings of His face 
Make me, at times, near half as blest as you! 
O ! might His beauty feast my ravish'd eyes, 

His gladdening presence ever stay. 

And cheer me all my journey through ! 
But soon the clouds return: my triumph dies; 

Damp vapors from the valleys rise, 
And hide the hill of Zion from my view. 

Spirit of Light ! thrice Holy Dove ! 
Brighten my sense of interest in that love. 
Which knew no birth, and never shall expire I 
Electing Goodness, firm and free, 
My whole salvation hangs on Thee. 
Eldest and fairest daughter of Eternity ! 
Redemption, grace, and glory too. 

Our bliss above, and hopes below, 

From her, their parent fountain, flow. 
Ah, tell me. Lord, that Thou hast chosen me ! 
Thou, who hast kindled my intense desire, 
Fulfil the wish Thy influence did inspire, 

And let me my election know ! 
Then, when Thy summons bids me come up higher, 

Well pleased I shall from life retire. 
And join the burning hosts, beheld at distance now. 

— Augustus Montague Toplady, 



Where Christ is there is the Church. — Pressense. 




280 OUR CHURCH, 



GOD IN THE CHURCH. 

HERE is no truth which men find so difficult to 
accept as God revealed in themselves. Christ 
^ asked no question which has received so many 
different answers as, " Whom say ye that I am ? " 
Every possible theory of his personality and life has 
been advanced and finally discarded. The mythical 
theory of Strauss falls to pieces by its own weight of 
improbability, and is abandoned; Kenan's exquisite fancy 
and charming literary skill cannot conceal the hopeless 
inadequacy of his treatment of this marvelous character. 
The men who looked upon the face of Christ and listened 
to those words in which, even to their untrained spiritual 
sense, eternal truths uttered themselves, were not less 
skeptical than the doubters of our time. A -revelation of 
God in the flesh seemed incredible to them even under the 
supernal glow of that transcendent life and the spell of a 
teaching, which, even while they rejected, they declared was 
such as never man spoke' before. 

The same difficulty meets the Christian Church in every 
age; men will not see God in human tabernacles. They 
will recognize him shrined in the temple of nature : they 
will not bow to him throned in humanity ; and yet this 
thought of God is not utterly foreign to human thought; on 
the contrary, it is found in almost every great religion. 
" There is but one temple in the world, and that is the body 
of man; nothing is holier than this high form," says 
Novalis; and, measuring the gifts, the powers and possi- 
bilities of humanity against all its environment of earth, 



OUR CHURCIT. 281 

and sky, and mighty flow of unseen force, what is so august 
and worthy the indwelling of the divine Spirit as the soul 
of man, as the great company of faithful people in all the 
generations! Paul had his faults and his limitations ; hut, 
setting the incalculable results of his strenuous life beside 
the stainless beauty of the Parthenon, the noblest of all 
temples built with hands, does not fluted column, and 
carved architrave, and faultless statue shrink into insignifi- 
cance ? 

The Church has made its mistakes and committed its sins, 
and the Christian should be the last to understate or extenu- 
ate them ; but where else has the fruit of the Spirit ripened 
so steadily ? Webster said that he found one evidence of 
the divine origin of the Christian religion in the fact that it 
had outlived written sermons ; more deeply and seriously it 
may be said that a crowning evidence of the divine commis- 
sion and the work of the Church is found in the fact that it 
has moved steadily on in spite of the sluggishness and blind- 
ness of men ; that it has survived continual mistakes and 
shortcomings, and that out of the ashes of repented sins it 
has blossomed in ever-recurring seasons of fruitfulness. The 
God of human thought would reveal himself in some mirac- 
ulous appearance outside human experience and above 
human limitations ; a revelation distinct and apart from all 
human life, and touching it only with a sense of wonder and 
awe. The God higher than all human conceptions appears 
in the very dawn of history, discovering himself to unde- 
veloped men in a language which they could understand, 
and continuing that disclosure to this very hour in a speech 
that has steadily deepened in meaning and risen in spiritual 
expression. He is not apart from men, but in and with 
them ) he shines not more clearly in his sublime heavens 



282 OUR CHURCH. 

than in the troubled life of his children ; he works not more 
divinely in the hidden depths of the universe than in human 
history and with human co-operation. To the reverent 
mind, open to the highest revelation, God is nowhere so 
unspeakably beautiful, so wholly divine, as in his fellowship 
with men ; and this is what gives the Church its sanctity. 
In all its history the human weakness and the divine Spirit 
have wrought together ; follies and failures have been over- 
ruled by that omnipotent power which can harness even the 
wrath of men to the chariot of praise. 

Very few intelligent and honest men are satisfied with 
the manner in which our government is administered ; their 
indignation at corrupt methods and corrupt men, and their 
disgust with ignorant and inefficient measures are expressed 
in continual condenmation and criticism ; but if they are 
good citizens they do not stay away from the polling place. 
They know that all human organizations, however high 
their aims and exalted their functions, are but imperfect 
machinery, likely to get out of order in spite of the most 
careful watching. The Church, on its practical, working, 
organizing and governing side, is a piece of human machinery; 
full, therefore, and necessarily, of flaws and imperfections ; 
likely at all times to get out of order, and often undoing, by 
the carelessness or ignorance of those who direct it, the very 
work it was framed to perform. That such elements of 
disorder and failure lurk in it, and that in spite of them it 
continues to serve the highest interests of the world as no 
other instrumentality has ever served them, ought to deepen 
the reverence of all thoughtful men rather than shake their 
faith in the divine mission and work of the Christian 
C h urch . — - Christian Union, 




p UK cn URCH. 283 



JOYS OF THE CHURCH TRIUMPHANT. 

|;^EST! how sweet the sound! It is melody to my 
ears. It lies as a reviving cordial at my heart, 
and thence sends forth lively spirits, which beat 
through all the pulses of my soul. Rest — not as 
^?K^!J the stone that rests on the earth, nor as this flesh 
cfy shall rest in the grave, nor such a rest as the carnal 
^0" world desires. Oh, blessed rest ! when we rest not day 
and night, saying, " Holy, holy, holj^ Lord God Almighty;" 
when we shall rest from sin, but not from worship ; from 
sufifering and sorrow, but not from joy. Oh, blessed day! 
when I shall rest with God ! when I shall rest in the bosom 
of my Lord ! when my perfect soul and body shall together 
perfectly enjoy the most perfect God. 

This is that joy which was procured by sorrow ; that 
crown which was procured by the cross. My Lord wept, 
that now my tears might be wiped away ; he bled, that I 
might now rejoice ; he was forsaken, that I might 7iot be ; 
he died, that I might live. Oh, free mercy, that can exalt 
so vile a wretch ! Free to me, though dear to Christ ; free 
grace, that hath chosen me when thousands were forsaken ! 

Oh, sweet reconciliation ! happy union ! Now the Gospel 
shall no more be dishonored through our folly. No more, 
my soul, shalt thou lament the suffering saints, or the 
Church's ruins, or mourn thy suffering friends, nor weep 
over their dying beds or their graves. Thou shalt never 
suffer thy old temptations from Satan, the world, or thy 
flesh. Thy pains and sickness are all cured; thy body shall 
no more burden thee with weakness and weariness; thy 



284 ^^^ CHURCH. 

aching head and heart, thy hunger and thirst, thy sleep and 
labor, are all gone. 

Oh, what a mighty change is this ! From persecuting sin- 
ners, to praising saints; from a vile body, to this which 
shines as the brightness of the firmament; from a sense of 
God's displeasure, to the perfect enjoyment of him in love ; 
from all my fearful thoughts of death, to this joyful life. 
Blessed change! Farewell sin and sorrow forever; farewell 
my rocky, proud, unbelieving heart; my worldly, sensual, 
carnal heart ; and welcome my most holy, heavenly nature. 
Farewell repentance, faith, and hope; and w^elcome love, joy, 
and praise. 

I shall now have my harvest without ploughing or sow- 
ing ; my joy without a preacher or a promise ; even all from 
the face of God himself Whatever mixture is in the 
streams, there is nothing but pure joy in the fountain. 
Here I shall be encircled with eternity, and ever live, and 
ever, ever praise the Lord. My face will not wrinkle, nor 
my hair be gray; for this corruptible shall have put on 
incorruption, and this mortal immortality; death shall be 
swallowed up in victory. 

" O death ! where is now thy sting ? 
O grave ! where is thy victory ? 

The date of my lease will no more expire, nor shall I 
trouble myself with thoughts of death, nor lose my joys 
through feai^ of losing them. When millions of ages are 
past, it is no nearer ending. Every day is all noon, every 
month is harvest, every year is a jubilee, every age is a full 
manhood, and all this is one eternity ! the glory of my 
glory ! the perfection of my perfection. — Richard Baxter, 




OUR CHURCH. 285 



THE SPIRITUAL TEMPLE. 

ND the house, when it was in building, was built 

of stone made ready before it was brought 

thither : so that there was neither hammer nor 

axe nor any tool of iron heard in the house, 

while it was in building" (1 Kings iv. 7). 



And whence, then, came these goodly stones 'twas Israel's pride to 

raise, 
The glory of the former house, the joy of ancient days ; 
In purity and strength erect, in radiant splendor bright, 
Sparkling with golden beams of noon, or silver smiles of night? 

From coasts the stately cedar crowns, each noble slab was brought, 
In Lebanon's deep quarries hewn, and on its mountains wrought; 
There rung the hammer's heavy stroke among the echoing rocks. 
There chased the chisel's keen, sharp edge, the rude, unshapen blocks. 

Thence polished, perfected, complete, each fitted to its place. 
For lofty coping, massive wall, or deep imbedded base. 
They bore them o'er the waves that rolled their billowy swell be- 
tween 
The shores of Tyro's imperial pride and Judah's hills of green. 

With gradual toil the work went on, through days and months and 

years. 
Beneath the summer's laughing sun, and winter's frozen tears; 
And thus in majesty sublime and noiseless pomp it rose, — 
Fit dwelling for the God of Peace, — a temple of repose ! 

Brethren in Christ ! to holier things the simple type apply; 
Our God himself a temple builds, eternal and on high, 



286 OUB CHUBCH. 

Of souls elect; their Zion there— that world of light and bliss; 
Their Lebanon — the place of toil — of previous moulding — this. 

From nature's quarries, deep and dark, with gracious aim he hews 
The stones, the spiritual stones, it pleaseth him to choose: 
Hard, rugged, shapeless at the first, yet destined each to shine, 
Moulded beneath his patient hand, in purity divine. 

Oh ! glorious process ! see the proud grow lowly, gentle, meek ; 
See floods of unaccustomed tears gush down the hardened cheek : 
Perchance the hammer's heavy stroke o'erthrew some idol fond ; 
Perchance the chisel rent in twain some precious, tender bond. 

Behold, he prays whose lips were sealed in silent scorn before, — 
Sighs for the closet's holy calm, and hails the welcome door: 
Behold, he works for Jesus now, whose days went idly past ; 
Oh, for more mouldings of the hand that works a change so vast \ 

Ye looked on one, a well-wrought stone, a saint of God matured, — 
What chisellings. that heart had felt, what chastening strokes en- 
dured ! 
But marked ye not that last soft touch, what perfect grace it gave, 
Ere Jesus bore his servant home across the darksome wave ? — 

Home to the place his grace designed that chosen soul to fill. 
In the bright temple of the saved, "upon his holy hill ; " 
Home to the noiselessness, — the peace of those sweet shrines above, 
Whose stones shall never be displaced — set in redeeming love. 

Lord ! chisel, chasten, polish us, each blemish work away, 
Cleanse us with purifying blood, in spotless robes array; 
And thus, thine image on us stamped, transport us to the shore, 
Where not a stroke is ever felt, for none is needed more. 




OUR CHURCH. 287 

THE UNREVEALED CHURCH. 

EHOLD, what manner of love the Father hath 
bestowed upon us, that we should be called the 
sons of God : therefore the world knoweth us not, 
because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we 
the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what 
we shall be : but we know that, when he shall appear, 
we shall be like him ; for we shall see him as he is." 
The Church of God is only manifested in this present 
world, by the excellencies of its character. Owing to human 
imperfection and weakness, the positive validity of any one's 
claim to the relationship of son and daughter of the Lord 
Almighty may not be perfectly obvious to the Avorld, or even 
to fellow-heirs of the like precious faith. The salvation that 
God impresses on the heart, a living tracery, graven by the 
Holy Spirit, is discernible only by the Omniscient eye. 
Where mortal eyes, looking at the outward appearance, 
contemplate only the frail child of earth, the divine vision 
may distinguish an heir of eternal glory, a son of God yet 
unrevealed. The closed bud in a wintry day may seem 
small and even contemptible, wrapped in its scaly integu- 
ments, while the plant is rooted in this desert soil : but 
that bud may enwrap a blossom which when unfolded in 
the sunshine of paradise will display tinting incomparable, 
and everlasting loveliness. The rich in faith and heirs of 
the kingdom are among the poor in this present world. 
Royal halls and imperial palaces, rich with carving, gilding, 
and tapestry, are not the abodes of the most excellent of the 
earth. God's own dear Son was houseless and homeless while 



288 <^UR CHURCH, 

in this world, and though the birds had nests and the foxes 
had holes, divine Royalty had not where to lay its head. 
Dens, caves, huts and hovels have sheltered; sheepskins, 
goatskins, rags and sackcloth have clothed, and lowliness 
and obscurity have hidden, the heirs of the heavenly king- 
dom from the gaze of a careless world. And if they have 
been lost among the humble and abject classes of humanity 
while living, how utterly forgotten while sleeping the 
sleep of death, are those who shall yet be held in 
everlasting remembrance. No garnished sepulchres are 
built for the dust of many of the heirs of immortality : no 
monumental marble or lettered granite tells where many 
sleep who in coming ages shall be equal with the angels of 
light. While the carved and graven pillar marks the place 
where wealth and honor are reposing, the wild rose and the 
tangled sweetbriar grow untended over forms destined to 
wear a crown of glory through endless futurit3^ Some who 
shall walk the golden streets in the New Jerusalem sleep 
beneath their mantle of snow in Arctic graves, where un- 
setting stars look down through the long nights on the un- 
marked resting-places of the dead. Some who shall yet 
follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth, amid the spreading 
groves of the tree of life in the glad garden of God, rest now 
beneath the green turf once crimsoned with their martyr 
blood. The hot sands of the torrid deserts drift over dust 
more precious than gold, which is yet to be reformed in 
deathless beauty, and sing among the morning stars in the 
new creation. Others who shall come forth at the Redeemer's 
call, to sit upon the Saviour's throne, lie deep down upon the 
ocean's floor, where coral insects build their gorgeous tombs. 
To-day the Church, the Redeemer's Bride, is a forlorn 
and outcast wanderer — a dweller in a wilderness of toils 



OUR CHURCH. 289 

and cares ; but she will one day put on her bridal robes and 
appear in the ages to come as the heavenly Princess, the 
Bride, the Lamb's Wife. The day of re-genesis and redemp- 
tion will dawn upon this chaotic world, and break through 
the shadows of death's silent night. This which is now 
earthly shall bear the image of the heavenly, w^eakness 
shall be changed for power, corruption transformed into 
imperishability, mortality into deathlessness, and all the 
imperfections of humanity shall be transfigured, when these 
vile bodies shall be made like unto Christ's glorious body. 

Those who have the first fruits of the Spirit groan within 
themselves, and struggle for the resurrection of life. For 
this promised redemption, a sin -paralyzed creation groans, 
and from the martyrs comes up the cry, " How long, 
Lord ? " The closing history of the world, that " lieth in the 
Wicked One," will soon be written. The annals of the future 
wnll be the records of the glorified and triumphant Church. 
May it be ours to share in its unending blessedness. 

— S. A. Chaplin. 

THE BLESSINGS OF ZION. 

*^,HE wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad 
for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom 
as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly, and 




y.(^^ rejoice even with joy and singing: the glory of 

Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excellency of 

Carmel cand Sharon ; they shall see the glory of the 

Lord, and the excellency of our God. Strengthen ye 

the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees. Say to them 

that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not : behold, your 

God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompense ; 

19 



290 ^ ^^ CHURCH. 

he will come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind 
shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. 
Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of 
the dumb sing; for in the wilderness shall waters break out, 
and streams in the desert. And the parched ground shall 
become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water; in the 
habitation of dragons where each lay, shall be grass, with 
reeds and rushes. And an highway shall be there, and a 
way, and it shall be called the way of holiness ; the unclean 
shall not pass over it ; but it shall be for those : the wayfar- 
ing men, though fools, shall not err therein. No lion shall 
be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon, it 
shall not be found there ; but the redeemed shall walk there. 
And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to 
Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads : they 
shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall 
flee away. — Isaiah xxxv. 



OUR COUNTRY. 

Or. 



§&. 



the noble motto be, 
Qj ''God, the country, Liberty! " 
Planted on Religion's rock, 
Thou shalt stand in every shock. 



The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places, yea I 
have a goodly heritage. — Psa. 16 : 6. 

(291) 



OUR COUNTRY. 

OOB God ! we thank thee for this home—* 

This bounteous birthland of the free ; 
Where wanderers frorp afar may come, 

And breathe the air of liberty ! — 
Still may her flowers untrarapled spring. 

Her harvests wave, her cities rise ; 
And yet, till time shall fold his wing, 

Remain earth^s loveliest paradise." 



(292) 





I 







OUR COUNTRY. 

[written expressly for this work by AMANDA ELIZABETH 

DENNIS.] 

H ! blest and fairest of the fair ! 
Oh ! beautiful beyond compare ! 

Oh ! lovely sunset land ! 
Our hearts, grown tender 'neath the grace 
And witchery of thy dear face, 
With grateful love expand. 

Thou seemest a dear and tender friend, 
Upon whose love our souls depend 

For sunshine sweet and bland ; 
No other land so dear can be ; 
Our hearts go out in love to thee, 

Oh ! beauteous sunset land ! 

Our country's God, to Thee we raise • 
Our hearts in hymns of boundless praise 

For this dear, gleaming strand — 
This home of ours, by Freedom blest, 
This Darling of the glorious West, 

This radiant sunset land ! 

And in the shelter of thine arms 
We'll hush to rest the weak alarms 

We cannot understand, 
Content to trust the loving care 
That clothes with beauty ever fair 

Our own dear sunset land ! 

(293) 




AMERICA. 

•§e(^^^EARCH creation round, where can you find a 
Q^^r^ country that presents so sublime a view, so in- 
'^C^^(^ teresting an anticipation? What noble institu- 
tions ! What a comprehensive policy ! What a 
wise equalization of every political advantage ! The 
oppressed of all countries, the martyrs of every creed, 
the innocent victim of despotic arrogance or supersti- 
tious frenzy, may there find refuge ; his industry encouraged, 
his piety respected, his ambition animated ; with no restraint 
but those laws which are the same to all, and no distinction 
but that which his merit may originate. Who can deny that 
the existence of such a country presents a subject for human 
congratulation ! Who can deny that its gigantic advance- 
ment offers a field for the most rational conjecture ! At the 
end of the very next century, if she proceeds as she seems 
to promise, what a wondrous spectacle may she not exhibit ! 
Who shall say for what purpose mysterious Providence may 
not have designed her! Who shall say that when in its 
follies or its crimes, the old world may have buried all the 
pride of its power, and all the pomp of its civilization, hu- 
man nature may not find its destined renovation in the 
new 1 When its temples and its trophies shall have mould- 
ered into dust — when the glories of its name shall be but 
the legend of tradition, and the li^ht of its achievements live 
only in song ; philosophy will revive again in the sky of her 
Franklin, and glory rekindle at the urn of Washington. 
Is this the vision of romantic fancy ? Is it even improba- 

(294) 



OUR COUNTRYc 295 

ble ? Is it half so improbable as the events, which for the 
last twenty years have rolled like successive tides over the 
surface of the European world, each erasing the impressions 
that preceded it ? Many I know there are who will consider 
this supposition as wild and whimsical, but they have dwelt 
with little reflection upon the records of the past. They have 
but ill observed the progress of national rise and national 
ruin. They form their judgment on the deceitful stability 
of the present hour, never considering the innumerable mon- 
archies and republics, in former days, apparently as perma- 
nent, their very existence become now the subject of specu- 
lation — I had almost said of skepticism. I appeal to history ! 
Tell me, thou reverend chronicler of the grave, can all the 
allusions of ambition realized, can all the wealth of a uni- 
versal commerce, can all the achievements of successful hero- 
ism, or all the establishments of this world's wisdom, secure 
to empire the permanency of its possessions ? Alas, Troy 
thought so once ; yet the land of Priam lives only in song ! 
Thebes thought so once ; yet her hundred gates have crum- 
bled, and her very tombs are but as the dust they were vainly 
intended to commemorate ! So thought Palmyra — -where is 
she ! So thought Persepolis, and now — 

'^ Yon waste, where roaming lions howl, 
Yon aisle, where moans the grav-eyed owl, 
Shows the proud Persian's great abode, 
Where sceptred once, an earthly god, 
His power-clad arm controlled each happier clime, 
Where sports the warbling muse, and fancy soars sublime." 

So thought the countries of Demosthenes and the Spartan ; 
yet Leonidas is trampled by the timid slave, and Athens in-^ 
suited by the servile, mindless and enervate Ottoman. In 



296 OUR COUNTRY. 

his hurried march. Time has but looked at their imagined 
immortality, and all its vanities, from the palace to the 
tomb, have, with their ruins, erased the very impression of 
his footsteps ! The days of their glory are as if they had 
never been ; and the island that was then a speck, rude and 
neglected, in the barren ocean, novf rivals the ubiquity of 
their commerce, the glory of their arms, the fame of their 
philosophy, the eloquence of their senate, and the inspiration 
of their bards ! Who shall say, then, contemplating the 
past, that England, proud and potent as she appears, may 
not one day be what Athens is, and the young America 3'et 
soar to be what Athens was ! Who shall say, when the 
European column shall have mouldered, and the night of 
barbarism obscured its very ruins, that that mighty continent 
may not emerge from the horizon, to rule, for its time, sov- 
ereign of the ascendent. 

Such, sir, is the natural progress of human operations, and 
such the unsubstantial mockery of human pride. — Charles 
Phillips. 



AMERICA THE OLD AVORLD. 

■" '^'^P)IRST-BORN among the continents, though so 
I much later in culture and civilization than some 
!^ of more recent birth, America, so far as her phys- 
ical history is concerned, has been falsely de- 
nominated the NeiD World. Hers was the first dry 
land lifted out of the waters, hers the first shore washed 
by the ocean that enveloped all the earth beside ; and 
while Europe was represented only by islands rising here and 




O UR COUNTE Y. 297 

there above the sea, America already stretched an unbroken 
line of land from Nova Scotia to the Far West. 

In the present state of our knowledge, our conclusions re- 
specting the beginning of the earth's history, the way in 
which it tool^ form and shape as a distinct, separate planet, 
must, of course, be very vague and hypothetical, yet the 
progress of science is so rapidly reconstructing the past that 
we may hope to solv3 even this problem, and to one who 
looks upon man's appearance upon the earth as the crowning 
work in a succession of creative acts, all of which have had 
relation to his coming in the end, it will not seem strange 
that he should at last be allowed to understand a history 
which was but the introduction of his own existence. It is 
my belief that not only the future, but the past also, is the 
inheritance of man, and that we shall yet conquer our lost 
birthright. 

Even now our knowledge carries us far enough to warrant 
the assertion that there was a time when our earth was in a 
state of igneous fusion, when no ocean bathed it and no at- 
mosphere surrounded it, when no wind blew over it, and no 
rain fell upon it, but an intense heat held all its materials in 
solution. In those days the rocks which are now the very 
bones and sinews of our mother Earth — her granites, her 
porphyries, her basalts, her sienites — were melted into a 
liquid mass. As I am writing for the unscientific reader, 
who may not be familiar with the facts through which these 
inferences have been reached, I will answer here a question 
which, were we talking together, he might naturally ask in 
a somewhat skeptical tone. How do you know that this 
state of things ever existed, and, supposing that the solid 
materials of which our earth consists were even in a liquid 
condition^ what right have j'ou to" infer that this condition 



298 OUR COUNTRY, 

was caused by the action of heat upon them ? I answer, be- 
cause it is acting upon them still ; because the earth we tread 
is but a thin crust floating on a liquid sea of molten mate- 
rials ; because the agencies that were at work then are at 
work now, and the present is the logical sequence of the 
past. From artesian wells, from mines, from geysers, from 
hot springs, a mass of facts have been collected, proving in- 
contestably the heated condition of all substances at a cer- 
tain depth below the earth's surface ; and if we need more 
positive evidence, we have it in the fiery eruptions that even 
now bear fearful testimony to the molten ocean seething 
within the globe and forcing its way out from time to time. 
The modern progress of geology has led us by successive and 
perfectly connected steps back to a time when what is now 
only an occasional and rare phenomenon was the normal 
condition of our earth, when those internal fires were en- 
closed in an envelope so thin that it opposed but little re- 
sistance to their frequent outbreak, and they constantly 
forced themselves through this crust, pouring out melted 
materials that subsequently cooled and consolidated on its 
surface. So constant were these eruptions and so slight was 
the resistance they encountered, that some portions of the 
earlier rock-deposits are perforated with numerous chimneys, 
narrow tunnels as it were, bored by the liquid masses that 
poured out through them and greatly modified their first 
condition. 

There is, perhaps, no part of the world, certainly none 
familiar to science, where the early geological periods can be 
studied with so much ease and precision as in the United 
States. Along their northern borders, between Canada and 
the United States, there runs the low line of hills known as 
the Laurentian Hills. Insignificant in height, nowhere 



OUR COUNTRY, 299 

rising more than fifteen hundred or two thousand feet above 
the level of the sea, these are nevertheless the first moun- 
tains that broke the uniform level of the earth's surface, and 
lifted themselves above the water. Their low stature, as 
compared with that of more lofty mountain ranges, is in ac- 
cordance with an invariable rule, by which the relative age 
of mountains may be estimated. The oldest mountains are 
the lowest, while the younger, more recent ones, tower above 
their elders, and are usually more torn and dislocated also. 
This is easily understood when we remember that all moun^ 
tains and mountain chains are the result of upheavals, and 
that the violence of the outbreak must have been in propor- 
tion to the strength of the resistance. When the crust of 
the earth was so thin that the heated masses within easily 
broke through it, they were not thrown to so great a height, 
and formed comparatively low elevations, such as the Cana- 
dian hills or the mountains of Bretagne and Wales. But 
in later times, when young, vigorous giants, such as the 
Alps, the Himalayas, or, later still, the Rocky Mountains, 
forced their way out from their fiery prison-house, the 
crust of the earth was much thicker, and fearful indeed 
must have been the convulsions which attended their exit. 

The Lauren tian Hills form, then, a granite range, stretching 
from Eastern Canada to the Upper Mississippi, and immedi- 
ately along its base are gathered the Azoic deposits, the 
first stratified beds, in which the absence of life need not 
surprise us, since they were formed beneath a heated ocean. 
As well might we expect to find the remains of fish, or shells, 
or crabs at the bottom of geysers or of boiling springs, as on 
those early shores bathed by an ocean of which the heat 
must have been so intense. Although from the condition in 
which we find it, this first granite range has evidently never 



300 (^UR COMNTRY, 

been disturbed by any violent convulsions since its first up- 
heaval, yet there has been a gradual rising of that part of 
the continent, for the Azoic beds do not lie horizontally along 
the base of the Lauren tian Hills in the position in which they 
must originally have been deposited, but are lifted and rest 
against their slopes. They have been more or less dislo- 
cated in this prQcess, and are greatly metamorphosed by the 
intense heat to which they must have been exposed. 
Indeed, all the oldest stratified rocks have been baked by 
the prolonged action of heat. 

It may be asked how the materials for those first stratified 
deposits were provided. In later times, when an abundant 
and various soil covered the earth, when every river brought 
down to the ocean, not only its yearly tribute of mud or clay 
or lime, but the debris of animals and plants that lived and 
died in its waters or along its banks, when every lake and 
pond deposited at its bottom in successive layers the lighter 
or heavier materials floating in its waters and settling 
gradually beneath them, the process by which stratified 
materials are collected and gradually harden into rock is 
more easily understood. But when the solid surface of the 
earth was only just beginning to form, it would seem that 
the floating matter in the sea can hardly have been in 
sufficient quantity to form any extensive deposits. No doubt 
there was some abrasion even of the first crust ; but the 
more abundant source of the earliest stratification is to be 
found in the submarine volcanoes that poured their liquid 
streams into the first ocean. At what rate these materials 
would be distributed and precipitated in regular strata it is 
impossible to determine ; but that volcanic materials were so 
deposited in layers is evident from the relative position of 
the earliest rocks. I have already spoken of the innumera- 



OUR COUNTRY. 301 

ble chimneys perforating the Azoic beds, narrow outlets of 
Plutonic rock, protruding through the earliest strata. Not 
only are such funnels filled with the crystalline mass of 
granite that flowed through them in a liquid state, but it has 
often poured over their sides, mingling with the stratified 
beds around. In the present state of our knowledge, we can 
explain such appearances only by supposing that the heated 
materials within the earth's crust poured out frequently, 
meeting little resistance ; that they then scattered and were 
precipitated in the ocean around, settling in successive strata 
at its bottom, — that through such strata the heated masses 
continue to pour again and again, forming for themselves the 
chimney-like outlets above mentioned. 

Such, then, was the earliest American land — a long, nar- 
row island, almost continental in its proportions, since it 
stretched from the eastern borders of Canada nearly to the 
point where now the base of the Kocky Mountains meets 
the plain of the Mississippi Yalley. We may still walk 
along its ridge and know that we tread upon the ancient 
granite that first divided the waters into a northern and 
southern ocean ; and if our imaginations will carry us so far, 
we may look down toward its base and fancy how the sea 
washed against this earliest shore of a lifeless world. This 
is no romance, but the bald, simple truth; for the fact that 
this granite band was lifted out of the waters so early in the 
history of the world, and has not since been submerged, has, 
of course, prevented any subsequent deposits from forming 
above. And this is true of all the northern part of the 
United States. It has been lifted gradually, the beds de- 
posited in one period being subsequently raised, and forming 
a shore along which those of the succeeding one collected, 
so that we have their whole sequence before us. In regions 



302 OUE COUNTRY. 

where all the geological deposits, Silurian, Devonian, Carbon- 
iferous, Permian, Triassic, etc., are piled one upon another, 
and we can get a glimpse of their internal relations only 
where some rent has laid them open, or where their ragged 
edges, worn away by the abrading action of external influ- 
ences, expose to view their successive layers, it must, of 
course, be more difficult to follow their connection. For this 
reason the American Continent offers facilities to the geolo- 
gist denied to him in the so-called Old World, where the ear- 
lier deposits are comparatively hidden, and the broken char- 
acter of the land, intersected by mountains in every direction, 
renders his investigation still more difficult. Of course, 
when I speak of the geological deposits as so completely un- 
veiled to us here, I do not forget the sheet of drift which 
covers the continent from north to south ; but the drift is 
only a superficial and recent addition to the soil, resting 
loosely above the other geological deposits, and arising from 
very different causes. 

In this article I have intended to limit myself to a general 
sketch of the formation of the Laurentian Hills with the 
Azoic stratified beds resting against them. In the Silurian 
epoch following the Azoic we have the first beach on which 
any life stirred ; it extended along the base of the Azoic 
beds, widening by its extensive deposits the narrow strip of 
land already upheaved. — Louis Agassiz. 



Moor the anchor of your politics to the rock of right- 
eousness, not to the shifting sands of supposed interest, 
and it will hold firm amid the rushing tides of popular 

opinion. 

— Canon Farrar. 




OUR COUNTRY. 303 



THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA BY 
COLUMBUS. 

T was on Friday morning, tlie 12th of October, 
f^^ 1492, that Columbus first beheld the New World. 
^ As the day dawned he saw before him a level 
island, several leagues in extent, and covered 
with trees like a continual orchard. Though ap- 
^y parently uncultivated, it was populous, for the inhab- 
itants were seen issuing from all parts of the woods and 
running to the shore. They were perfectly naked, and, as 
they stood gazing at the ships, appeared by their attitudes 
and gestures to be lost in astonishment. 

Columbus made signals for the ships to cast anchor, and 
the boats to be manned and armed. He entered his own 
boat richly attired in scarlet, and holding the royal standard, 
whilst Martin Alonzo Pinzon and Vincent Janes, his brother, 
put off in company in their boats, each with a banner of the 
enterprise emblazoned with a green cross, having on either 
side the letters F and Y, the initials of the Castilian mon- 
archs, Fernando and Ysabel, surmounted by crowns. 

As he approached the shore, Columbus, who was disposed 
for all kinds of agreeable impressions, was delighted with the 
purity and suavity of the atmosphere, the crystal transpar- 
ency of the sea, and the extraordinary beauty of the vegeta- 
tion. He beheld, also, fruits of an unknown kind upon the 
trees which overhung the shores. On landing, he threw 
himself on his knees, kissed the earth, and returned thanks 
to God with tears of joy. His example was followed by the 



304 OUR COUNTRY. 

rest, whose hearts indeed overflowed with the same feelings 
of gratitude. 

Columbus, then rising, drew his sword, displayed the 
royal standard, and assembling round him the tw^o captains, 
with Rodrigo de Escobedo, notary of the armament, Rodrigo 
Sanchez, and the rest w^ho had landed, he took solemn pos- 
session in the name of the Castilian sovereigns, giving the 
island the name of San Salvador. Having complied wath 
the requisite forms and ceremonies, he called upon all present 
to take the oath of obedience to him, as admiral and viceroy 
representing the persons of the sovereigns. 

The feelings of the crew now burst forth in the most ex- 
travagant transports. They had recently considered them- 
selves devoted men, hurrying forward to destruction ; they 
now looked upon themselves as favorites of fortune, and gave 
themselves up to the most unbounded joy. They thronged 
around the admiral with overflowing zeal, some embracing 
him, others kissing his hands. Those who had been most 
mutinous and turbulent during the voyage were now most 
devoted and enthusiastic, some begged f\ivors of him, as if he 
had already wealth and honors in his gift. Many abject 
spirits, who had outraged him by their insolence, now 
crouched at his feet, begging pardon for all the trouble they 
had caused him, and promising the blindest obedience for the 
future. 

The natives of the island, wdien, at the dav.m of day, they 
had beheld the ships hovering on their coast, had supposed 
them monsters which had issued from the deep during the 
night. They had crowded to the beach, and watched their 
movements with awful anxiety. Their veering about, ap- 
parently without effort, and tlie shifting and furling of their 
sails, resembliuG: hucre w^insrs, filled them with astonishment. 



OUR COUNTRY, 305 

When they beheld their boats approach the shore, and a 
number of strange beings clad in glittering steel, or raiment 
of various colors, landing upon the beach, they fled in affright 
to the woods. Finding, however, that there was no attempt 
to pursue or molest them, they gradually recovered from 
their terror, and approached the Spaniards with great awe, 
frequently prostrating themselves on the earth, and making 
signs of adoration. Daring the ceremonies of taking posses- 
sion, they remained gazing in tiniid admiration at the 
complexion, the beards, the shining armor, and splendid 
dress of the Spaniards. The admiral particularly attracted 
their attention, from his commanding height, his air of au- 
thority, his dress of scarlet, and the deference which was 
paid him by his companions ; all which pointed him out to 
be the commander. 

When they had still further recovered from their fears, 
they approached the Spaniards, touched their beards, and 
examined their hands and faces, admiring their whiteness. 
Columbus was pleased with their gentleness and confiding 
simplicity, and suffered their scrutiny with perfect acqui- 
escence, winning them by his benignity. They now supposed 
that the ships had sailed out of the crystal firmament which 
bounded their horizon, or had descended from above on their 
ample wings, and that these marvellous beings were inhabi- 
tants of the skies. 

The natives of the island were no less objects of curiosity 
to the Spaniards, differing as they did from any race of men 
they had ever seen. Their appearance gave no promise of 
either wealth or civilization, for they were entirely naked, and 
painted with a variety of colors. With some it was confined 
merely to a part of the face, the nose, or around the eyes; 
with others it extended to the whole body, and gave them 
20 



306 OUR COUNTRY, 

a wild and fantastic appearance. Theif complexion was of 
a tawny or copper hue, and they were entirely destitute of 
beards. Their hair was not crisp, like the recently discov- 
ered tribes of the African coast, under the same latitude, but 
straight and coarse, partly cut short above the ears, but 
some locks' were left long behind and falling upon their 
shoulders. Their features, though obscured and discolored 
by paint, were agreeable ; they had lofty foreheads, and re- 
markably fine eyes. They were of moderate stature and 
well-shaped ; most of them appeared to be under thirty years 
of age ; there was but one female with them, quite young, 
naked like her companions, and beautifully formed. 

As Columbus supposed himself to have landed on an island 
at the extremity of India, he called the natives by the gen- 
eral appellation of Indians, which was universally adopted 
before the true nature of his discovery was known, and has 
since been extended to all the aborigines of the New World. 
The islanders were friendly and gentle. Their only arms 
were lances, hardened at the end by fire, or pointed with a 
flint, or the teeth or bone of a fish. There was no iron to be 
seen, nor did they appear acquainted with its properties ; 
for when a drawn sword was presented to them, they un- 
guardedly took it by the edge. 

Columbus distributed among them colored caps, glass 
beads, hawks* bells, and other trifles, such as the Portuguese 
were accustomed to trade with among the natives of the 
gold coast of Africa. They received them eagerly, hung the 
beads round their necks, and were wonderfully pleased with 
their finery, and with the sound of the bells. The Span- 
iards remained all day on shore, refreshing themselves after 
their anxious voyage amidst the beautiful groves of the 



OUR COUNTRY. 307 

island, and returned on board late in the evening, delighted 
with all they had seen. 

On the following morning, at break of day, the shore was 
thronged with the natives ; some swam off to the ships, 
others came in light barks, which they called canoes, 
formed of a single tree, hollowed, and capable of holding 
from one man up to the number of forty or fifty. These 
they managed dexterously with paddles, and, if overturned, 
swam about in the water with perfect unconcern, as if in 
their natural element, righting their canoes with great facil- 
ity, and baling them with calabashes. 

They were eager to procure more toys and trinkets, not, 
apparently, from any idea of their intrinsic value, but 
because everything from the hands of the strangers possessed 
a supernatural virtue in their eyes as having been brought 
from heaven ; they even picked up fragments of glass and 
earthenware as valuable prizes. They had no objects to 
offer in return, except parrots, of which great numbers were 
domesticated among them, and cotton-yarn, of which they 
had abundance, and w^ould exchange large balls of ?[yq and 
twenty pounds weight for the merest trifle. They brought 
also cakes of a kind of bread called cassava, which consti- 
tuted a principal part of their food, and was afterward an im- 
portant article of provisions with the Spaniards. It was 
formed from a great root called the yuca, which they cul- 
tivated in fields. This they cut into small morsels, which 
they grated or scraped, and strained in a press, making a 
broad thin cake, which was afterward dried hard, and would 
keep for a long time, being steeped in water when eaten. It 
was insipid, but nourishing,, though the water strained from 
it in the preparation was a deadly poison. There was 



308 OUR COUNTRY. 

another kind of yuca destitute of this poisonous quality, 
which was eaten in the root, either boiled or roasted. 

The avarice of the discoverers was quickly excited by the 
sight of small ornaments of gold, worn by some of the na- 
tives in their noses. These the latter gladly exchanged for 
glass beads and hawks' bells, and both parties exulted in the 
bargain, no doubt admiring each other's simplicity. As 
gold, however, was an object of royal monopoly in all enter- 
prises of discovery, Columbus forbade any traffic in it without 
his express sanction ; and he put the same prohibition on 
the traffic for cotton, reserving to the crown all trade for it, 
wherever it should be found in any quantity. He inquired 
of the natives where this gold was procured. They answered 
him by signs, pointing to the south, where, he understood 
them, dwelt a king of such w^ealth that he was served in 
vessels of wrought gold. He understood, also, that there 
was land to the south, southwest and the northwest; and 
that the people from the last-mentioned quarter frequently 
proceeded to the southwest in quest of gold and precious 
stones, making in their w^ay descents upon the islands and 
carrying off the inhabitants. Several of the natives showed 
him scars of wounds received in battles with these invaders. 
It is evident that a great part of this fancied intelligence 
was self-delusion on the part of Columbus, for he was under 
a spell of imagination which gave its own shapes and colors 
to every object. 

He was persuaded that he had arrived among the islands 
described by Marco Polo as lying opposite Cathay, in the 
Chinese Sea, and he construed everything to accord with the 
account given of those opulent regions. Thus the enemies 
which the natives spoke of as coming from the northwest 
he concluded to be the people, of the mainland of Asia, the 



OUR COUNTRY, 309 

subjects of the great Khan of Tartary, who were represented 
by the Venetian travellers as accustomed to make war upon 
the islands and to enslave their inhabitants. The country 
to the south, abounding in gold, could be no other than the 
famous island of Cipango; and the king who was served 
out of vessels of gold must be the monarch whose magnificent 
city and gorgeous palace, covered with plates of gold, had 
been extolled in such splendid terms by Marco Polo, 

The island where Columbus had thus for the first time 
set his foot upon the new world was called by the natives 
Guanahane. It still retains the name of San Salvador, 
which he gave to it, though called by the English Cat Island. 
The light which he had seen the evening previous to his 
making land may have been on Watlings Island, which lies 
a few leagues to the east. San Salvador is one of the great 
cluster of the Lucayos or Bahama Islands, which stretch 
southeast and northwest from the coast of Florida to His- 
paniola, covering the northern coast of Cuba. 

— Wasliington Irving, 



GOD'S HAND IN THE DISCOVERY OF 

AMERICA. 

WILL pass over and take another period, a period 

in which we personally, as a people, are more in- 

^ .^ terested — the age of the discovery of America. 

^^^ We shall not have the prophecies that we may 

see are literally fulfilled, but we can show a won- 

^' derful aggregation of agencies that, I think, will con- 

' vince any reasoning mind that God's hand was in some 

way in the history. And first, 'why was this country so 




\<^Q 



310 OUR COUNTRY, 

long left to be either uninhabited or simply the abode of a 
few roaming tribes? Who hid it? How was it concealed? 
Some people had found their way here, possibly from the 
East. Some ships from Greenland had found their way to 
the northern coast at about the year 1000, and monuments 
have been left attesting it. But it was forgotten. It was 
wholly unknown. Why was it kept ? Think of the age 
of the world ; think of the grand events that were occurring. 
Men had been struggling to get the principles of associated 
and individual happiness in some way harmonized. The 
power of government was the Oriental idea, grappling 
everything, ruling everything by a central power. The idea 
of the northern element was individual freedom — the man 
made himself, the government was nothing — came from yon 
hordes in Asia, finding its way down over toward Spain and 
over toward the North Sea. And this conflict of peoples, 
the association of the individual and the governmental, was 
developing the great laws of human society and human 
freedom. Colleges were being founded. International law 
was being studied. The rights of men were being discussed. 
The art of printing was invented. The mariner s compass 
was found. Man was being expanded. And just when all 
this preparation was made and a race, intelligent and strong 
and developed, was in readiness, then God lifted the curtain. 
A Genoese navigator was asleep on the banks of his native 
river, and he dreamed that some one gave to him the keys 
of empire of a western world. He had had thoughts of a 
western world before, but his soul was stirred, and he went 
from rich man to rich man, from prince to prince, from king 
to king, asking for help to send out vessels to find a western 
world, or at least a way to Cathay, as they termed it, or 
China. No one would help himj all thought his visions 



OUR CO US TRY. 311 

fanciful dreams. At last, despairing of help elsewhere, he 
went to Isabella, the pious Queen of Spain. The argument 
he used was the religious argument. He said to her, If 
there be a western world, it is probably inhabited ; and if it 
be inhabited, they have never heard of Christ, and they 
will all perish. Her queenly heart was touched, and she 
said : '' Columbus shall have his ships, if I sell my crown 
jewels to pay the expense ; " and, as used to be the way 
three hundred years ago, when a woman undertook a thing, 
she had her own way. The ships were given to Columbus, 
and Isabella kept her crown jewels. Columbus found 
America, and found it under the impulse of this rehgious 
idea. God opened up America, and opened it up at that age 
of the world and for a people prepared. — Bishop Simpson, 



THE COLONIZATION OF AMERICA. 

y^^^T this time it is not easy to comprehend the im- 
pulse given to Europe by the discovery of Amer- 
ica. It was not the gradual acquisition of some 
border territory, a province or a kingdom, that 
K had been gained, but a new woild thrown open to 
^ the European. The races of animals, the mineral 
treasures,^ the vegetable forms, and the varied aspects 
of nature, man in the different phases of civilization, filled 
the mind with entirely new sets of ideas, that changed the 
habitual current of thought, and stimulated it to indefinite 
conjecture. The eagerness to explore the wonderful secrets 
of the new hemisphere became so active that the principal 
cities in Spain were, in a manner, depopulated, as emigrants 
thronged one after another to take their chance upon the 



312 ' OUR cou:ntry. 

deep. It was a world of romance that was thrown open, for, 
whatever ri^ight be the luck of the adventurer, his reports on 
his return were tinged with a coloring of romance that stimu- 
lated still higher the sensitive fancies of his countrymen, and 
nourished the chimerical sentiments of an age of chivalry. 
They listened with attentive ears to tales of Amazons, which 
seemed to realize the classic legends of antiquity ; to stories 
of Patagonian giants ; to flaming pictures of an El Dorado 
— Golden Land — where the sands sparkled with gems, and 
golden pebbles as large as birds' eggs were dragged in nets 
out of the rivers. 

Yet that the adventurers were no impostors, but dupes, too 
easy dupes, of their own credulous fancies, is shown by the 
extravagant character of their enterprises ; by expeditions 
in search of the magical Fountain of Health, of the Golden 
Temple of Doboyba, of the Golden Sepulchres of Yenu — for 
gold was ever floating before their distempered vision, and 
the name of Castilla del Ora — Golden Castle— the most un- 
healthy and unprofitable region of the Isthmus, held out a 
bright promise to the unfortunate settler, who too frequently 
instead of gold found there only his grave. 

In this realm of enchantment all the accessories served to 
maintain the illusion. The sim^^le natives, with their de- 
fenceless bodies and rude weapons, were no match for the 
European warrior, armed to the teeth in mail. The odds 
were as great as those found in any legend of chivalry, where 
the lance of the good knight overturned hundreds at a touch. 
The perils that lay in the discoverer's path, and the suffer- 
ings he had to sustain, were scarcely inferior to those that 
beset the knight-errant. Hunger and thirst and fatigue, the 
deadly effluvia of the morass, with its swarms of venomous 
insects, the cold of mountain snows, and the scorching sun 



OUR COUNTRY, 313 

of the tropics — these were the lot of every cavalier who 
came to seek his fortunes in the New World. It was the 
reality of romance. The life of the Spanish adventurer was 
one chapter more, and not the least remarkable, in the 
chronicles of knight-errantry. 

The character of the warrior took somewhat of the exag- 
gerated coloring shed over his exploits. Proud and vain- 
glorious, swelled with lofty anticipations of his destiny, and 
an invincible confidence in his own resources, no danger 
could appall and no toil could tire him. The greater the 
danger, indeed, the higher the charm ; for his soul reveled 
in excitement, and the enterprise without peril wanted that 
spur of romance which was necessary to rouse his energies 
into action. Yet in the motives to action meaner influences 
were strangely mingled with the loftier, the temporal with 
the spiritual. Gold was the incentive and the recompense, 
and in the pursuit of it his inflexible nature rarely hesitated 
as to the means. His courage was sullied with cruelty, the 
cruelty that flowed equally, strange as it may seem, from his 
avarice and his religion; religion as it was understood in 
that age — the religion of the Crusader. It w^as the conven- 
ient cloak for a multitude of sins, which covered them even 
from himself The Castilian, too proud for hypocrisy, com- 
mitted more cruelties in the name of religion than were ever 
practised by the pagan idolater or the fanatical Moslem. 
The burning of the infidel was a sacrifice acceptable to 
Heaven, and the conversion of those who survived amply 
atoned for the foulest offences. It is a melancholy and mor- 
tifying consideration that the most uncompromising spirit of 
intolerance — the spirit of the Inquisitor at home and of the 
Crusader abroad — should have emanated from a religion 



314 OUR COUNTRY. 

which preached " peace upon earth and good-will towards 

man ! " 

What a contrast did tiiese children of Southern Europe 
present to the Anglo-Saxon races, who scattered themselves 
along the great northern division of the Western Hemis- 
phere ! For the principle of action with these latter was 
not avarice, nor the more specious pretext of proseljtism ; 
but independence — independence religious and political. To 
secure this, they were content to earn a bare subsistence by 
a life of frugality and toil. They asked nothing from the 
soil but the reasonable returns of their own labor. No 
golden visions threw a deceitful halo around their path, and 
beckoned them onwards through seas of blood to the subver- 
sion of an unoffending djmasty. They were content with the 
slow but steady progress of their social polity. They pa- 
tiently endured the privations of the wilderness, watering 
the tree of liberty with their tears and with the sweat of 
their brow, till it took deep root in the land and sent up its 
branches high toward the heavens, while the communities 
of the neighboring continent, shooting up into the sudden 
splendors of a tropical vegetation, exhibited, even in their 
prime, the sure symptoms of decay. 

It would seem to have been especially ordered by Provi- 
dence, that the discovery of the two great divisions of the 
American Hemisphere should fall to the two races best fitted 
to conquer and colonize them. Thus the northern section 
was consigned to the Anglo-Saxon race, whose orderly, in- 
dustrious habits found an ample field for development under 
its colder skies and on its more rugged soil, while the south- 
ern portion, with its rich tropical products and treasures of 
mineral wealth, held out the most attractive bait to invite 
the enterprise of the Spaniard. How different might have 



OUR COUNTRY. 



315 



been the result, if the bark of Cohimbus had taken a more 
northerly direction, as he at one time meditated, and landed 
its band of adventurers on the shores of what is now Free 
America ! — William Hichling Prescott. 



OUR NATIVE LAND. 

^SWuOD bless our native land ! 
'^^"'^ Firm may slie ever stand, 

Through storm and night: 
When tlie wild tempest wave, 
Ruler of wind and wave, 
Do thou our country save 
By thy great might ! 

For her our prayer shall rise 

To God, above the skies; 

On him we wait: 
Thou who art ever nigh, 
Guarding with watchful eye, 
To thee aloud we cry, 

God save the State ! 

— John S. DwigTit 




Shall we regard with indifference the great inheritance 
which cost our sires their blood, because w^e find in their gift 
an admixture of imperfection and evil ? Surely there is 
good enough, in the contemplation of which every patriotic 
heart may say, " God bless my own, my native land." 

— James A. Oar field. 

First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his 
fellow-citizens.- — General Henry Lee. 




316 OUR COUNTRY 



LOVE OF COUNTRY. 

'»EXT to the worship of the Father of us all, the 
,Z deepest and grandest of human emotions is the 
}(h love of the land that eave us birth. It is an 
enlargement and exaltation of all the tenderest 
and strongest sympathies of kindred and of home. In 
^s^n all centuries and climes it has lived, and defied chains 
^ and dungeons, and racks to crush it. It has strewed 
the earth with its monuments, and it has shed undying 
lustre on a thousand fields on w^hich it has battled. Through 
the night of ages, Thermopylge glows like some mountain 
peak on which the moriTing sun has risen, because twenty-three 
hundred years ago this hallowing passion touched its mural 
precipices and its crowning crags. It is easy, however, to 
be patriotic in piping times of peace and in the sunny hour 
of prosperity. It is national sorrow — it is war, with its 
attendant perils and horrors, that tests this passion and 
winnows from the masses those w^ho, wnth all their love of 
life, still love their country more. We honor commerce with 
its busy marts, and the w^orkshop with its patient toil and 
exhaustless ingenuity, but still w^e w^ould be unfaithful to 
the truth of history did w^e not confess that the most heroic 
champions of human freedom and the most illustrious apos- 
tles of its principles have come from the broad fields of 
anrriculture. There seems to be somethins: in the scenes of 
nature, in her wild and beautiful landscapes, in her cascades, 
and cataracts, and waving woodlands, and in the pure and ex- 
hilarating airs of her hills and mountains, that unbraces the 
fetters wiiicli man would rivet upon the spirit of his fellow- 



OUR COUNTRY. 317 

man. It was at the handles of the plough, and amid the breath- 
ing odors of its newly-opened furrows, that the character of 
Cincinnatus was formed, expanded and matured. It was not 
in the city, but in the deep gorges and upon the snow- 
clad summits of the Alps, amid the eagles nnd the thunders, 
that William Tell laid the foundations of those altars to 
human liberty^ against which the surging tides of European 
despotism have beaten for centuries, but, thank God, have 
beaten in vain. It was amid the primeval forests and 
mountains, the lakes and leaping streams of our own land; 
amid fields of waving grain ; amid the songs of the reaper 
and the tinkling of the shepherd's bell, that were nurtured 
those rare virtues which clustered, star-like, in the character 
of Washington, and lifted him in moral stature a head and 
shoulders above even the demigods of ancient story. 

— Hon. Joseph Holt. 

OUR NATION A PRODUCT OF 
CHRISTIANITY. 

^T^i^iBT^o-.O candid observer will deny that whatever of good 
(fcii^^/ there may be in our American civilization is the 
A^t^^^ product of Christianity. Still less can he deny 
^Sj/^^l that the grand motives which are working for the 

f-^-cTv elevation and purification of our society are strictly 
Christian. The immense energies of the Christian 
Church, stimulated by a love that shrinks from no ob- 
stacles, are all bent towards this great aim of universal purifi- 
cation. These millions of sermons and exhortations which 
are a constant power for good ; these countless prayers and 
songs of praise, on which the heavy-laden lift their hearts 
above the temptations and sorrows of the world, are all the 



318 OUR COUNTRY, 

product of faith in Jesus Christ. That which gives us pro- 
tection by day and by night — the dwellings we live in, the 
clothes we wear, the institutions of social order, all these are 
the direct offspring of Christianity. All that distinguishes 
us from the Pagan world — all that makes us what we are, 
and all that stimulates us in the task of making ourselves 
better than we are — is Christianity. A belief in Jesus 
Christ is the very fountain-head of everything that is de- 
sirable and praiseworthy in our civilization, and this civiliza- 
tion is the flower of time. Humanity has reached its noblest 
thrift, its grandest altitudes of excellence, its highest water- 
mark, through the influence of this faith. 

— Springfield RepuhUcan, 



OUR COUNTRY A HOUSEHOLD. 

VhE great object which the statesmen of the 
^ Revolution sought was the defence, protection, 
and good government of the whole, without 
injustice to any portion of the people. Experi- 
ence had taught them that it was impossible for a 
great republic to grow up where its e-very act of public 
policy was liable to be thwarted by the vote of the individ- 
ual States; therefore they framed an organic law as the 
foundation of our common government, which gave the men 
of Carolina and Massachusetts a name dearer than any 
sectional name — the name of an American Citizen! In that 
conflict of opinions, by a temper of conciliation and brotherly 
love, by an earnest loyalty to freedom and profoundest 




OUR COUNTRY, 3I9 

reverence for law, they framed that constitution which has 
been the admiration of the world. 

I yield to no man in my admiration for those noble men 
whose names are our household words; but in this history I 
see the hand of God, and acknowledge that our nationality 
was his gift and not the fruits of our fathers' wisdom. Ours 
is not the only nation which has sought to be free. Strong 
arms and stout hearts have often failed — the world is filled 
with the lamentations of the patriots and dirges for the dead. 
God always gives to a nation its birthright and its name. A 
nation is not a mere aggregate of households, or villages, or 
States — national life is something beyond the fact that 
individual men hav^e banded together for mutual defence. 
This belonged to the savage tribes who once roamed over 
this goodly land. They may be strong, daring, freedom- 
loving men, without national life. There never was a nobler 
race than the people who dwelt in the fastnesses of Scotland, 
but their tie was only one of kindred ; the family became a 
clan, separate clans warred with each other in murderous 
strife, and Scotland was a field of blood. Until the cross 
was firmly planted in Britain, England had no nationality — 
it was a land of faction until the law and providence of God 
became the people's guide, and then the nobler name of 
Saxon became a Christian name to tell of all that is manly 
and true. Our national life is the gift of God. No other 
hand could gather out of other lands millions of people of 
different tongues and kindred, and mould these into one 
mighty nation that shall receive into itself the men of every 
clime, and stamp on them its own mark of individuality ; teach- 
ing them its language, making them its kin, and binding 
them as one household under its own constitution and laws. 

— Bishop Whipple, 



320 



OUR COUNTRY, 




V/HAT IS OUR COUNTRY? 

HAT is this country ? Is it the soil on which we 
tread ? Is it the gathering of familiar faces ? Is 
^^f^fj^ it our luxury and pomp and pride ? Nay, more 
I oFc:^ than these, is it power, and might, and majesty 
alone ? No, our country is more, far more than all 
these. The country which demands our love, our 
courage, our devotion, our heart's blood, is more than all 
these. Our country is the history of our fathers, our coun- 
try is the tradition of our mothers, our country is past renown, 
our country is present pride and power, our country is future 
hope and destiny, our country is greatness, glory, truth, 
constitutional liberty — above all, freedom forever! These 
are the watchwords under which we fight ; and we will shout 
them out till the stars appear in the sky, in the stormiest 
hour of battle. 

— Senator Baker. 




THE OLD THIRTEEN. 

HE curtain rises on a hundred years, 
] A pageant of the olden time appears, 
l^ Let the historic muse her aid supply, 
^ To note and name each form that passes by. 
Here conie the old original Thirteen! 
Sir Walter ushers in the Virgin Queen ; 
Catholic Mary follows her, whose land 
Smiles on soft Chesapeake from either strand ; 
Then Georgia, with the sisters Caroline, — 
One the palmetto wears, and one the pine; 



OUR COUNTRY. 



321 



Next she who ascertained the rights of men, 

Not by the sword but by the word of Penn,— 

The friendly language hers, of " thee '^ and " thou : " 

Then, she whose mother was a thrifty frow, 

Mother herself of princely children now ; 

And, sitting at her feet, the sisters twain, 

Two smaller links in the Atlantic chain. 

They, through those long dark winters drear and dire, 

"Watched with our Fabius round the bivouac fire ; 

Comes the free mountain maid in white and green ; 

One guards the Charter Oak with lofty mien ; 

And lo ! in the plain beauty once she wore, 

The pilgrim mother from the Bay State shore ; 

And last, not least, is little Rhody seen. 

With face turned heavenward, steadfast and serene, 

She on her anchor, Hope, leans, and will ever lean. 

— Charles Timothy Broohs, 



W^ASHINGTON. 

[This hymn was sung at a celebration on Washington's birthday, in the Old South 

Church, Boston.] 



O thee, beneath whose eye, 
Each circling century 

Obedient rolls. 
Our nation, in its prime, 
Looked with a faith sublime, 
And trusted in "the time 
That tried men's souls.'^ 




When from this gate of iieaven * 
People and priest were driven 

* The Old South Church was taken possession of by the British while they held Bos- 
ton, and converted into barracks for the cavalry, the pews being cut up for fuel or usedi 
in constructing stalls for the horses. 
21 



322 OUR COUNTRY. 

By fire and sword, 
And, where thy saints had pray'd, 
The harness'd war-horse neigh'd, 
And horseman's trumpet bray'd 
. In harsh accord. 

Nor was our fathers' trust, 
Thou mighty One and Just, 

Then put to shame ; 
"Up to the hills'' for light, 
Look'd they in peril's night, 
And, from yon guardian height, * 

Deliverance came. 

Then, like an angel form, 
Sent down to still the storm, 

Stood Washington ! 
Clouds broke and rolled away ; 
Foes fled in pale dismay ; 
Wreath'd were his brows with bay, 

When War was done. 

God of our sires and sons. 
Let other Washingtons 

Our country bless. 
And, like the brave and wise 
Of by-gone centuries, 
Show that true greatness lies 

In righteousness. 

— hierpont 

Millions for defence, but not a cent for tribute. — Gotes- 
worth Plnckney, 

* From his position on " Dorchester Heights," that overlook the town, Washington 
Bucceeded in compelling the British forces to evacuate Boston. 



OUR COUNTRY. 323 



THE BIRTHDAY OF WASHINGTON. 

9hE birthday of the '' Father of his Country ! '* 
^ May it ever be freshly remembered by American 



^ 




^^ 



hearts ! May it ever reawaken in them a filial 
veneration for his memory; ever rekindle the 
fires of patriotic regard for the country which he 
loved so well, to which he gave his youthful vigor and 
his youthful energy during the perilous period of the 
early Indian warfare ; to which he devoted his life in the 
maturity of his powers, in the field ; to which again he of- 
fered the counsels of his wisdom and experience, as president 
of the convention that framed our Constitution ; which he 
guided and directed while in the chair of state, and for which 
the last prayer of his earthly supplication was offered up, 
when it came the moment for him so well, and so grandly, 
and so calmly to die. He was the first man of the time in 
which he grew. His memory is first and most sacred in our 
love, and ever hereafter, till the last drop of blood shall freeze 
in the last American heart, his name shall be a spell of power 

and of miirht. 

<^ 

Yes, gentlemen, there is one personal, one vast felicity, 
which no man can share with him. It was the daily beauty 
and towering and matchless glory of his life which enabled 
him to create his country, and at the same time secure an 
undying love and regard from the whole American people. 
" The first in the hearts of his countrymen ! " Yes, first ! 
He has our first and most fervent love. Undoubtedly there 
were brave and wise and good men, before his day, in every 
colony, but the American nation, as a nation, I do not reckon 



324 OUR COUNTRY, 

to have begun before 1774. And the first love of that 
Young America was Washington. The first word she lisped 
was his name. Her earliest breath spoke it. It still is her 
proud ejaculation; and it will be the last gasp of her expir- 
ing life ! Yes ; others of our great men have been appre- 
ciated — many admired by all — but him we love. About 
and around him we call up no dissentient and discordant 
and dissatisfied elements — no sectional prejudice nor bias — 
no party, no creed, no dogma of politics. None of these 
shall assail him. Yes ; when the storm of battle blows 
darkest and rages highest, the memory of Washington shall 
nerve every American arm, and cheer every American heart. 
It shall relume that Promethean fire, that sublime flame of 
patriotism, that devoted love of country which his words 
have commended, wdiich his example has consecrated : 

" Where may the wearied eye repose, 

When gazing on the great ; 
Where neither guilty glory glows 

Nor despicable state ? 
Yes — one — the first, the last, the best, 
The Cincinnatus of the West, 

Whom Envy dared not hate, 
Bequeathed the name of Washington, 
To make man blush there was but one." 

— Rufus Clioate. 



America is a grand place to live in; the inhabitants 
appreciate the efforts of every man, woman or child who 
tries to earn an honest living and " go a j)eg higher." 

— George 11. Scott 




OUR COUNTRY, 325 



THE CHARACTER OF AVASHINGTON. 

^^0 matter what may be the birthplace of such a 
2 man as Washington, no climate can claim, no 
country can appropriate him — the boon of Provi- 
dence to the human race, his fame is eternity, 
and his residence creation. 
Though it was the defeat of our arms and the disgrace 
of our policy, we almost bless the convulsion in which 
he had his origin — if the heavens thundered and the earth 
rocked, yet, when the storm passed, how pure was the climate 
that it cleared, how bright in the brow of the firmament was 
the planet it revealed to us ! 

In the production of Washington it does really appear as 
if nature was endeavoring to improve upon herself, and that 
all the virtues of the ancient world were but so many studies 
preparatory to the patriot of the new. 

As a general, he marshaled the peasant into a veteran and 
supplied by discipline the absence of experience. 

As a statesman, he enlarged the policy of the cabinet into 
the most comprehensive system of general advantage ; and 
such was the wisdom of his views and the philosophy of his 
counsel that to the soldier and the statesman he almost added 
the character of the sage. 

A conqueror, he was untainted with the crime of blood ; 
a revolutionist, he was free from any stain of treason, fcr 
aggression commenced the contest, and a country called him 
to command. Liberty unsheathed his sword, necessity 
stained, victory retuned it. 

If he had paused here, history might doubt what station 



326 OUR COUNTRY, 

to assign him, whether at the head of her citizens or her 
soldiers, her heroes or her patriots. But the last glorious act 
crowned his career, and banished hesitation. 

Who like Washington, after having freed a country, re- 
signed her crown, and retired to a cottage rather than remain 
in a capital ? 

Immortal man ! He took from the battle its crime, and 
from the conquest its chains ; he left the victorious the glory 
of his self denial, and turned upon the vanquished only the 
retribution of his mercy. 

Happy, proud America ! The lightnings of heaven could 
not resist your sage ; the temptations of earth could not cor- 
rupt your soldier. 



AN EPITAPH ON ^A^ASHINGTON. 

[The following epitaph was discovered on the back of a portrait of Washington, sent 
to the family from England. It was copied from a transcript in the handwriting of 
Judge Washington.] 

HE defender of his Country — the founder of Liberty, 
The friend of man. 
History and tradition are ex})lored in vain 

For a parallel to his character. 
In the annals of modern greatness 

He stands alone ; 
And the noblest names of Antiquity 
Lose their lustre in his presence. 
Born the benefactor of mankind, 
He united all the greatness necessary 
To an illustrious career. 
Nature made him great, 
IJe made himself virtuous. 
Called by his Country to the defence of her Liberties 
He triumphantly vindicated the rights of humanity, 




OUR COUNTRY. 327 

And, on the pillars of National Independence, 
Laid the foundation of a Great Republic. 
Twice invested with Supreme Magistracy 
By the unanimous vote of a free people, 
He surpassed, in the Cabinet, 
The glories of the field. 
And, voluntarily resigning the sceptre and the sword^ 
Retired to the shades of private life; 
A spectacle so new, and so sublime. 
Was contemplated with profoundest admiration. 
And the name of Washington, 
Adding new lustre to humanity, 
Resounded to the remotest regions of the earth. 
Magnanimous in youth. 
Glorious through life, 
Great in death. 
His highest ambition the happiness of m-ankind. 

His noblest victory the conquest of himself. 
Bequeathing to posterity the inheritance of his fame, 
And building his monument in the hearts of his countrymen,— 

He lived — the ornament of the Eighteenth Century, 
He died regretted by a mourning world. 



THE LAND OF OUR BIRTH. 

f A T^W^ G HERE is not a spot in the wide peopled earth, 
^S So dear to the heart as the land of our birth ; 
\^ ^Tis the home of our childhood ! the beautiful spot 
Which memory retains where all else is forgot. 
May the blessing of God 
Ever hallow the sod, 
And its valleys and hills by our children be trod. 




328 OUR COUNTRY. 

Can the language of strangers in accents unknown, 
Send a thrill to our bosoms, like that of our own ? 
The face may be fair, and the smile may be bland, 
But it breathes not the tones of our dear native land. 

There is not a spot on earth, 

Like the land of our birth, 
Where heroes keep guard o'er the altar hearth. 

How sweet is the language which taught us to blend 
The dear name of parent, of husband and friend ; 
Which taught us to lisp on our mother's soft breast. 
The ballads she sung, as she rocked us to rest. 

May the blessings of God 

Ever hallow the sod, 
And its valleys and hills by our children be trod. 

Should the tempest of war overshadow our land. 
Its holts could ne'er rend Freedom's temple asunder; 
For, unmoved, at its portal w^ould Washington stand. 
And repulse, with his breast, the assaults of the thunder. 

His sword from the sleep 

Of its scabbard would leap. 
And conduct, with its point, every flash to the deep. 



HISTORY OF THE DECLARATION OF 
INDEPENDENCE. 

/^^T was on the 7th of June, 1776, that Mr. R. H. 
Sl^^t)V ^^^^ obeyed the instructions of the Virginia 
h^fW^ Legislature by moving that Congress should 
^vSw^ declare independence. Two days' debate revealed 
^^-^v^ that the measure, though still a little premature, was 
^^ destined to pass, and, therefore, the further discussion 
T of the subject was postponed for twenty days, and a 
committee of five was appointed to draft a declaration — - 



OUR COUNTRY. 329 

Thomas Jefferson, Dr. Franklin, John Adams, Roger Sher- 
man and R. R. Livingston. Mr. Jefferson was naturally 
urged to prepare the draft. He was chairman of the 
committee, having received the highest number of votes; he 
was also its youngest member, and therefore bound to do an 
ample share of the work ; he was noted for his skill with 
the pen ; he was particularly conversant with the points of 
the controversy ; he was a Virginian. The task, indeed, was 
not very arduous or difficult. Nothing was wanted but a 
careful and brief recapitulation of wrongs familiar to every 
patriotic mind, and a clear statement of principles hackneyed 
from eleven years' iteration. Jefferson made no difficulty 
about undertaking it, and probably had no anticipation of 
the vast celebrity that was to follow so slight an exercise of 
his faculties. 

He was ready with his draft in time. His colleagues 
upon the committee suggested a few verbal changes, none 
of which were important; but during the three days' discus- 
sion of it in the House, it was subjected to a review so 
critical and severe, that the author sat in his place silently 
writhing under it, and Dr. Franklin felt called upon to con- 
sole him with the comic relation of the process by which the 
sign-board oi John Thompson, hatter, malces and sells hats for 
ready money, was reduced to the name of the hatter and the 
figure of a hat. Congress made eighteen suppressions, six 
additions and ten alterations, and nearly every one of these 
changes was an improvement. The noblest utterance of the 
whole composition is the reason given for making the 
declaration — "A Decent Respect for the Opinions of Man- 
kind." This touches the heart. Among the best emotions 
that human nature knows is the veneration of man for man. 
This recognition of the public opinion of the world — the 



330 ^UR COUNTRY. 

sum of human sense— as the final arbiter in all such contro- 
versies, is the single phrase of the document which Jefferson 
alone, perhaps, of all the Congress, would have originated ; 
and in point of merit, it was worth all the rest. 

During the 2d, 3d and 4th of July, Congress were engaged 
in reviewing the declaration. Thursday, the fourth, was a 
hot day \ the session lasted many hours ; members were 
tired and impatient. Every one who has watched the ses- 
sions of a deliberative body knows how the most important 
measures are retarded, accelerated, even defeated, by physi- 
cal cause of the most trifling nature. Mr. Kinglake inti- 
mates that Lord Raglan's invasion of the Crimea was due, 
rather to the after-dinner slumbers of the British Cabinet, 
than to any well-considered purpose. Mr. Jefferson used to 
relate, with much merriment, that the final signing of the 
Declaration of Independence was hastened by an absurdly 
trivial cause. Near the hall in which the debates were then 
held was a livery stable, from which swarms of flies came 
into the open windows and assailed the stockinged legs of 
honorable members. Handkerchief in hand, they lashed 
the flies with such vigor as they could command on a July 
afternoon ; but the annoyance became at length so extreme 
as to render them impatient of delay, and they made haste 
to bring the momentous business to a conclusion. 

After such a long and severe strain upon their minds the 
members seem to have indulged in many a jocular observa- 
tion as they stood around the table. Tradition has it, that 
when John Hancock had affixed his magnificent signature 
to the paper, he said : ^^Tltere, John Bull may read my name 
without spectacles ! " 

No composition of man was ever received with more 
rapture than this. It came at a happy time. Boston was 



OUB COUNTRY. 33X 

delivered, and New York, as yet, but menaced ; and in all 
New England there was not a British soldier who was not a 
prisoner, nor a king's ship that was not a prize. Between 
the expulsion of the British troops from Boston, and their 
capture of New York, was the period of the Revolutionary 
War when the people were most confident and most united. 
From the newspapers and letters of the time, we should 
infer that the contest was ending rather than beginning, so 
exultant is their tone ; and the Declaration of Independence, 
therefore, was received more like a song of triumph than a 
call to battle. 

The paper was signed late on Thursday afternoon, July 
4th. On the Monday following, at noon, it was publicly 
read for the first time, in Independence Square, from a plat- 
form erected by Rittenhouse for the purpose of observing the 
transit of Venus. Captain John Hopkins, a young man com- 
manding an armed brig of the navy of the new nation, was 
the reader ; and it required his stentorian voice to carry the 
words to the distant vers^e of the multitude who had come 
to hear it. In the evening, as a journal of the day has it, 
'' our late King's coat-of-arms were brought from the hall of 
the State-house, where the said King's courts were formerly 
held, and burned amid the acclamations of a crowd of specta- 
tors." Similar scenes transpired in every centre of popula- 
tion, and at every camp and post. Usually the militia 
companies, the committee of safety and other revolutionary 
bodies, mar.ched in procession to some public place, where 
they listened decorously to the reading of the Declaration, 
at the conclusion of which, cheers were given and salutes 
fired ; and, in the evening, there were illuminations and 
bon-fires. In New York, after the reading, the leaden statue 
of the Jute King in Bowling Greenwas " laid prostrate in the 



332 (^UR COUNTRY. 

dust," and ordered to be run into bullets. The debtors in 
prison were also set at liberty. Virginia, before the news 
of the Declaration had reached her, July 5, 1776, had 
stricken the King's name out of the prayer-book ; and now, 
July 30, Rhode Island made it a misdemeanor to pray for 
the King as King, under penalty of a fine of one hundred 
thousand pounds ! 

The news of the Declaration was received with sorrow by 
all that was best in England. Samuel Rogers used to give 
American gcests, at his breakfasts, an interesting reminis- 
cence of this period. On the morning after the intelligence 
reached London, his father, at family prayers, added a 
prayer for the success of the colonies, which he repeated 
every day until the peace. 

The deed was done. A people not formed for empire 
ceased to be imperial ; and a people destined to empire be- 
gan the political education that will one day give them far 
more and better than imperial sway. — James Pctrton. 



INDEPENDENCE BELL.— JULY 4, 1776. 

^'^^hf^ HEN the Declaration of Independence was an- 
^^«r\/M liounced by ringing the old State House bell, 
in^^i^ which bore the inscription, " Proclaim liberty 
'^^S^ throughout the land, to all the inhabitants thereof," 
'^^S^ the old beUman stationed his little grandson at the 
*^ ,door of the hall, to await the instructions of the door- 
' keeper when to ring. At the word, the young patriot 
rushed out, and clapping his hands, shouted : " Ring! Ring ! 
RING ! " 



OUR COUNTRY. 333 

There was a tumult in the city, 

In the quaint old Quaker town, 
And the streets were rife with people 

Pacing restless up and down — 
People gathering at the corners, 

Where they whispered each to each, 
And the sweat stood on their temples, 

With the earnestness of speech. 

As the bleak Atlantic currents 

Lash the wild Newfoundland shore. 
So they beat against the State House, 

So they surged against the door ; 
And the mingling of their voices 

Made a harmony profound, 
Till the quiet street of Chestnut 

Was all turbulent with sound. 

« Will they do it ? '' '' Dare they do it ? " 

'' Who is speaking ? " " What's the news? " 
" What of Adams ? '' " What of Sherman ? " 

" Oh ! God grant they wont refuse ! " 
" Make some way there ! " ^' Let me nearer ! " 

'' I am stifling ! '' " Stifle then ! 
When a nation's life's at hazard, 

We've no time to think of men ! " 

So they surged against the State House, 

While all solemnly inside 
Sat the ^' Continental Congress," 

Truth and reason for their guide, 
O'er a simple scroll debating, 

Which, though simple it might be. 
Yet should shake the cliffs of England 

With the thunders of the free. 



334 • OVR COUNTRY. 

Far aloft in that high steeple 

Sat the bellman, old and gray ; 
He was weary of the tyrant 

And his iron-sceptered sway, 
So he sat, with one hand ready 

On the clapper of the bell, 
When his eye could catch the signal, 

The long-expected news, to tell. 

See ! see ! The dense crowd quivers 

Through all its lengthy line, 
As the boy beside the portal 

Hastens forth to give the sign ! 
With his little hands uplifted, 

Breezes dallying with his hair, 
Hark ! with deep clear intonation. 

Breaks his young voice in the air; 

Hushed the people's swelling murmur, 

Whilst the boy cries joyously : 
" King ! " he shouts, " Ring ! grandpapa, 

Ring ! Oh, ring for Liberty ! " 
Quickly at the given signal 

The old bellman lifts his hand, 
Forth he sends the good news, making 

Iron music through the land. 

How they shouted ! What rejoicing! 

How the old bell shook the air, 
Till the clang of freedom ruffled 

The calmly gliding Delaware ! 
How the bonfires and the torches 

Lighted up the night's repose. 
And from the flames, like fabled Phoenix, 

Our glorious liberty arose ! 



m 




OUR COUNTRY. 335 

That old State House bell is silent, 

Hushed is now its clamorous tongue ; 
But the spirit it awaken'd 

Still is living — ever young; 
And when we greet the smiling sunlight 

On the fourth of each July, 
We will ne'er forget the bellman 

Who, betwixt the earth and sky, 
Rung out, loudly, " Independence,'' 

Which, please God, shall never die. 

— Speaker Oarland. 



LIBERTY. 

LIBERTY ! thou goddess heavenly bright, 
Profuse of bliss, and pregnant with delight ! 
Eternal pleasures in thy presence reign, 
And smiling plenty treads thy wanton train. 

— Joseph Addison. 

THE FOURTH OF JULY. 

s. 

AY of glory ! welcome day ! 
Freedom's banners greet thy ray; 
See ! how cheerfully they play 

With thy morning breeze. 
On the rocks where pilgrims kneel'd. 
On the heights where squadrons wheel'd, 
When a tyrant's thunder peal'd 
O'er the trembling seas. 

God of armies! did thy "stars 
In their courses " smite his cars, 
Blast his arm, and wrest his bars 
From the heaving tide ? 



336 OUR COUNTRY, 

On our standard^ lo ! thej burn, 
And^ when days like this return, 
Sparkle o'er the soldiers' uru 
Who for Freedom died. 

God of peace ! — whose spirit fills 
All the echoes of our hills, 
All the murmurs of our rills, 

Now the storm is o'er ; 
O, let freemen be our sons ; 
And let future Washingtons 
E-ise, to lead their valiant ones, 

Till there's war no more. 

By the patriot's hallowed rest, 
B} the warrior's gory breast — 
Never let our graves be press'd 

By a despot's throne ; 
By the Pilgrims' toils and cares, 
By their battles and their prayers, 
By their ashes — let our heirs 

Bow to thee alone. 



ohyi Plerpont. 



g^T 



OUR NATAL DAY. 



is well that in our year, so busy, so secular, so 

discordant, there comes one day when the word 

5^ is, and when the emotion is, " Our country, our 

whole country, and nothing but our country." It 

is well that law — our only sovereign on earth — duty, 

^ not less the daughter of God, not less within her sphere 

' supreme — custom not old alone, but honored and useful 

— memories, our hearts, have set a time in which — scythe, 



OUR COUNTRY. 337 

loom, and anvil stilled, shops shut, wharves silent, the flag 
— our flag unrent — the flag of our glory and commemoration 
waving on masthead, steeple, and highland — we may come 
together and walk hand in hand, thoughtful, admiring, 
through these galleries of civil greatness, when we may own 
together the spell of one hour of our history upon us all ; 
when faults may be forgotten, kindnesses revived, virtues 
remembered and sketched unblamed ; when the arrogance of 
reform, the excesses of reform, the strifes of parties, the 
rivalries of regions, shall give place to a wider, warmer, and 
juster sentiment; when turning from the corners and dark 
places of offensiveness, if such the candle lighted by malig- 
nity, or envy, or censoriousness, or truth has revealed any- 
where ; when turning from these, we may go up to the 
serene and secret mountain top, and there 'pause, and there 
unite in the reverent exclamation, and in the exultant 
prayer, " How beautiful at last are thy tabernacles ! What 
people at last is like unto thee ? Peace be within thy pal- 
aces and joy within thy gates! The high places are thine, 
and there shalt thou stand proudly, and innocently, and 
securely." — Rufus Choate. 



LIBERTY IN AMERICA. 

ERE," might they say, "shall power's divided reign 
Evince that patriots have not bled in vain. 
Here God-Hke Hberty's herculean youth, 
Cradled in peace, and nurtur'd up by truth 
To full maturity of nerve and mind, 
Shall crush the giants that bestride mankind. 
Here shall religion's pure and balmy draught 
In form no more from cups of state be quaff'd^ 




22 



338 



OUR COUNTRY. 

But flow for all through nation, rank, and secfc, 
Free as that heaven its tranquil waves reflect. 
Around the columns of the public shrine 
Shall growing arts their gradual wreath intwine, 
Nor breathe corruption from the flowering braid, 
Nor mine that fabric which they bloom to shade. 
No longer here shall Justice bound her view, 
Or wrong the many, while she rights the few; 
But take her range through all the social frame, 
Pure and pervading as that vital flame 
Which warms at once our best and meanest part, 
And thrills a hair while it expands a heart." 

— Tliomas Moore. 




SPIRIT OF LIBERTY. 

'HE first object of a free people is, the preservation 
of their liberty, and liberty is only to be pre- 
^ served by maintaining constitutional restraints 
and just divisions of political power. Nothing is 
more deceptive or more dangerous than the pretense 
of a desire to simplify government. The simplest gov- 
ernments are despotisms ; the next simplest, limited 
monarchies; but all republics, all governments of all law 
must impose numerous limitations and qualifications of au- 
thority, and give many positive and many qualified rights. 
In other words, they must be subject to rule and regulation. 
This is the very essence of free political institutions. The 
spirit of liberty is indeed a bold and fearless spirit, but it is 
also a sharp-sighted spirit; it is a cautious, sagacious, dis- 
criminating, far-seeing intelligence ; it is jealous of encroach- 
ment, jealous of power, jealous of man. It demands checks, 
it seeks for guards, it insists on securities ; it entrenches it- 



QUR CO UN TR Y. 339 

self behind strong defences, and fortifies with all possible 
care against the assaults of ambition and passion. It does 
not trust the amiable weaknesses of human nature, and 
therefore it will not permit power to overstep its prescribed 
limits, though benevolence, good intent, and patriotic pur- 
pose, come along v/ith it. Neither does it satisfy itself with 
flashy and temporary resistance to illegal authority. Far 
otherwise, it seeks for duration and permanence. It looks 
before and after ; and, building on the experience of ages 
wdiich are past, it labors diligently for the benefit of ages to 
come. This is the nature of constitutional liberty, and this 
is our liberty if we will rightly understand and preserve it. 
Every free government is necessarily complicated, because all 
such governments establish restraint, as well on the power 
of government itself as on that of individuals. If we will 
abolish the distinction of branches, and have but one branch ; 
if we will abolish jury trials, and leave all to the judge; if 
we wdll then ordain that the legislator shall himself be the 
judge ; and if we will place the executive power in the same 
hands, we may readily simplify government — we may easily 
bring it to the simplest of all possible forms — -a pure despot- 
ism. But a separation of departments, so far as practicable, 
and the preservation of clear lines of division between them, 
is the fundamental idea in the creation of all our constitu- 
tions; and doubtless the continuance of regulated liberty 
depends on maintaining these boundaries. — Daniel Webster, 



The more I studied the political institutions of Europe, 
the more pleased I am with our own. I bless God I am an 
American. — ArcKbisliop Gibhon, - 



340 



OUR COUNTRY. 




THE FLOV\^ER OF LIBERTY, 



HAT flower is this that greets the morn, 
Its hues from heaven so freshly born? 
With burning star and flaming band 
It kindles all the sunset land ; 
O, tell us what its name may be 
Is this the Flower of Liberty ? 

Is this the banner of the free, 
The starry flower of Liberty ? 



In savage Nature's far abode 
Its tender seed our fathers sowed ; 
The storm-winds rocked its swelling bud, 
Its opening leaves were streaked with blood. 
Till lo ! earth's tyrants shook to see 
The full-blown Flower of Liberty ! 
Then hail the banner of the free, 
The starry Flower of Liberty J 

Behold its streaming rays unite 

One mingling flood of braided light—" 

The red that fires the southern rose,. 

With spotless white from northern snows, 

And, spangled o'er its azure, see 

The sister Stars of Liberty ! 

Then hail the banner of the free, 
The starry Flower of Liberty ! 



The blades of heroes fence it round. 
Where'er it springs is holy ground ; 
From tower and dome its glories spread ; 
Its waves where lonely sentries tread, 



OUR COUNTRY. 34I 

It makes the land, as ocean, free, 
And plants an empire m the sea ! 

Then hail the banner of the free, 

The starry Flower of Liberty ! 

Thy sacred leaves, fair Freedom's flower, 
Shall ever float in dome and tower, 
To' all their heavenly colors true, * 
In blackening frost or crimson dew — • 
And God loves us as we love thee^ 
Thrice holy Flower of Liberty ! 

Then hail the banner of the free, 

The starry Flower of Liberty ! 

— Oliver Wendell Holmes, 



LIBERTY STILL LIVES. 

;0 show our influence on the people in the remote 
corners of the earth, a citizen of the United 
States, during the trying times of the rebellion, 
was travelling on the northern coast of Norway ; 
and, landing from a small steamer at a trading 
in the early morning, before the inhabitants were 
astir, found three fishermen from Lapland waiting at the 
door of a store to do some small business in trade. The 
fishermen appeared to be a father and two sons. They 
were dressed in skins of the reindeer, and appeared to be 
half barbarian, illiterate people. They were introduced to 
the American, and when the elder of the Laplanders learned 
that the distinguished stranger was a citizen of this country, 
his countenance lighted up with an expression of eager in- 
telligence as he asked: ^^Are you from bej^ond the great 
sea?" Upon being answered in the affirmative, he ex- 




342 OUR COUNTRY. 

claimed : " Tell me. tell me, does liberty still live ? " He 
expressed great satisfaction upon being assured that it did. 

If, on the coast of the northern frozen seas, in a land of 
almost perpetual night, an illiterate fisherman feels such an 
eager interest in the question of the continu-ed vitality of 
liberty, what a dangerous messenger will be that ensign of 
the ship of state fla^shing " its meteor glories " among the 
thrones, crowns, and sceptres of the world ! The subjects 
and victims of oppression will catch " inspiration from its 
glances," and learning that liberty still lives, will pass the 
inspiring v/atchword from man to man. And the cry that 
" Liberty still lives " will be the world's battle-shout of free- 
dom, and the rallying watchword of deliverance. 

*^And the dwellers in the rocks and in the vales 
Shall shout it to each other, and the mountain tops 
From distant mountains catch the flyiug joy. 
Till, nation after nation taught the strain, - 
Earth rolls the rapturous hosanna round." 

And in the land of liberty's birth the tires of patriotism 
will be kept aflame by the iteration and reiteration of the 
answer to the fisherman's question, that "Liberty still 
lives." And from the hearts of the crowded cities, from the 
fireside of the farmer, and from the workshop of the me- 
chanic, in the busy hamlets of labor, and in the homes of 
luxury and ease, the hearts of freemen wall be cheered as 
our noble craft sails on, with the inspiriting assurance that 
" Liberty still lives." The burden of the cry will float upon 
the air wherever our banner waves, and its resonant notes 
will fill the land with a new inspiration as the joyful 
assurance is heard : 




OUR COUNTRY. 343 

"Coming up from each valley, flung down from each height, 
Our Country and Liberty, God for the right." 

— Hon. George Lear, 

LIBERTY AND GREATNESS. 

HE name of Republic is inscribed upon the most 
imperishable monuments of the human race ; and 
it is probable that it will continue to be associ- 
ated, as it has been in all past ages, with what- 
!ver is heroic in character, sublime in genius, and 
:ant and brilliant in the cultivation of arts and 
letters. What land has ever been visited with the 
influences of liberty that did not flourish like the springs ? 
What people has ever worshipped at her altars, without 
kindling with a loftier spirit, and putting forth nobler 
energies ? Where she has ever acted, her deeds have been 
heroic. Where she has ever spoken, her eloquence has been 
triumphant and sublime. 

We live under a form of government, and in a state of 
society, to which the world has never yet exhibited a parallel. 
Is it then nothing to be Free ? How many nations in the 
whole annals of human kind have proved themselves 
worthy of being so ? Is it nothing that we are Republi- 
cans ? Were all men s.s enlightened, as brave, as proud as 
they ought to be, would they suffer themselves to be insulted 
with any other title ? Is it nothing that so many indepen- 
dent sovereignties should be held together in such a con- 
federacy as ours ? What does history teach us of the 
difficulty of instituting and maintaining such a policy, and 
of the glory that ought to be given to those who enjoy its 
advantages in so much perfection, and on so grand a scale ? 



344 OUR COUNTRY. ' 

Can anything be more striking and sublime than the idea 
of an Imperial Kepublic, spreading over an extent of terri- 
tory more immense than the empire of the Csesars, in the 
accumulated conquests of a thousand years — without 
prefects, pro-consuls, or publicans — founded in the maxims 
of common sense, employing within itself no arms but those 
of reason, and known to its subjects only by the blessings it 
bestows and perpetuates, yet capable of directing against a 
foreign foe all the energies of a military despotism, — a 
Eepublic, in which men are completely insignificant, and 
principles and laws exercise throughout its vast domains a 
peaceful and irresistible sway, blending, in one divine 
harmony, such various habits and conflicting opinions, and 
mingling, in our institutions, the light of philosophy with all 
that is dazzling in the associations of heroic achievements, 
extended dominion, and formidable power. 

— Hugh Swinton Legare, 



INDEPENDENCE. 

AIL ! Independence, hail ! heaven's next best gift 
To that of life and an immortal soul ! 
The life of life ! that to the banquet high 
And sober meal gives taste ; to the low'd roof 
Fair dream'd repose, and to the cottage charms. 
Of public freedom, hail, thou secret source ! 
Whose streams from every quarter confluent flow 
My better Nile, that nurses human life, 
By rills from thee deduced, irriguous fed, 
The private field looks gay, with nature's wealth 
Abundant flows, and blooms with each delight 
That nature craves. 

— James Thomson^ 





OUR COUNTRY, 345 



THREE BULA^^ARKS OF LIBERTY. 

MEEICA has three bulwarks of liberty — a free ballot, 
a free school, and a free Sunday, and neither domestic 
treachery nor foreign impudence should be permitted to 
break them down. — The Century Magazine. 



UNION LINKED A^TITH LIBERTY. 

ITHOUT Union, our independence and liberty 
would never have been achieved ; without Union, 
^fS^^'S they can never be maintained. Divided into 
1 5^^^ twenty-four, or even a smaller number of separate 
communities, we shall see our internal trade bur- 
dened with numberless festraints and exactions ; com- 
munication between distant points and sections obstructed 
or cut off; our sons made soldiers, to deluge with blood 
the field they now till in peace ; the mass of our people 
borne down and impoverished by taxes to support armies 
and navies ; and military leaders, at the head of their 
victorious legions, becoming our lawgivers and judges. The 
loss of liberty, of all good government, of peace, plenty, and 
happiness, must inevitably follow a dissolution of the Union. 
In supporting it, therefore, we support all that is dear to the 
freeman and the philanthropist. 

The time at which I stand before you is full of interest. 
The eyes of all nations are fixed on our republic. The 
event of the existing crisis will be decision, in the opinion of 
mankind, of the practicability of our Federal system of 




346 OUE COUNTRY. 

government. Great is the stake placed in our hands ; great is 
the responsibility which must rest upon the people of the 
United States. Let us realize the importance of the attitude 
in which we stand before the world. Let us exercise forbear- 
ance and firmness. Let us extricate our country from the 
dangers which surround it, and learn wisdom from the lessons 
they inculcate. Deeply impressed with the truth of these ob- 
servations and under the obligation of that solemn oath which. 
I am about to take, I shall continue to exert all my faculties 
to maintain the just powers of the Constitution, and to 
transmit unimpaired to posterity the blessings of our Fed- 
eral Union. 

At the same time it will be my aim to inculcate, by my 
official acts, the necessity of exercising, by the General 
Government, those powers only that are clearly delegated ; 
to encourage simplicity and economy in the expenditures of 
the Government ; to raise no more money from the people 
than may be requisite for these objects, and in ^a manner 
that will best promote the interest of all classes of the com- 
munity, and of all portions of the Union. Constantly bear- 
ing in mind that, in entering into society, ^^individuals nmst 
give up a share of liberty to preserve the rest," it will be my 
desire so to discharge my duties as to foster with our 
brethren, in all parts of the country, a spirit of liberal con- 
cession and compromise ; and, by reconciling our fellow- 
citizens to those partial sacrifices which they must unavoid- 
ably make, for the preservation of a greater good, to 
recommend our invaluable Government and Union to the 
confidence and affections of the American people. Finally, 
it is my most fervent prayer to that Almighty Being before 
whom I now stand, and who has kept us in his hands from 
the infancy of our Republic to the present day, that ha will 




OUR COUNTRY. 347 

SO overrule all my intentions and actions, and inspire the 
hearts of my fellow-citizens, that we may be preserved from 
dangers of all kinds, and continue forever a united and 
happy people. — Andrew Jackson. 



IMPORTANCE OF THE UNION.. 

T is to the Union we owe our safety at home, 
and our consideration and dignity abroad. It is 
10* to that Union we are chiefly indebted for what- 
ever makes us most proud of our country. That 
Union we reached only by the discipline of our 
J^' virtues in the severe school of adversity. It had its 
' origin in the necessities of disordered finance, prostrate 
commerce, and ruined credit. Under its benign influences, 
these great interests immediately awoke, as from the dead, 
and sprang forth with newness of life. Every year of its 
duration has teemed with fresh proofs of its utility and its 
blessings; and although our population spread farther and 
farther, they have not outrun its protection or its benefits. 
It has been to us all a copious fountain of national, social, 
personal happiness. 

I have not allowed myself, sir, to look beyond the Union, 
to see what might lie hidden in the dark recesses behind. I 
have not coolly weighed the chances of preserving liberty, 
when the bonds that unite us together shall be broken 
asunder. I have accustomed myself to hang over the 
precipice of disunion, to see whether, with my short sight, I 
can fathom the depth of the abyss below ; nor could I regard 
him as a safe counsellor in the affairs of this Government 
^•hose thoughts should be mainly" bent on considering, not 



348 <^UR COUNTRY. 

how the Union should be best preserved, but how tolerable 
might be the condition of the people when it shall be broken 
up and destroyed. While the Union lasts we have high, 
exciting, gratifying prospects spread out before us and our 
children. Beyond that I seek not to penetrate the veil. 
God grant that, in my day at least, that curtain may not 
rise. God grant that on my vision never may be opened 
what lies behind. When my eyes shall be turned to behold, 
for the last time, the sun in the heaven, may I not see him 
shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once- 
glorious Union ; on States dissevered, discordant, belliger- 
ent ; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, 
in fraternal blood ! Let the last feeble and lingering glance, 
rather, behold the gorgeous ensign of the Republic, now 
known and honored throughout the earth, still full high, 
advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original 
lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star 
obscured — bearing for its motto no such miserable interroga- 
tory as. What is all this worth ? nor those other words 
of delusion and folly. Liberty first, and Union afterwards ; 
but everywhere spread all over in characters of living light, 
blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and 
over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, 
that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart, — 
Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable ! 

— Daniel Webster, 



WE ARE ONE PEOPLE. 

'^^T'E are now one people — we have a common interest 
Xi) in the Union. Let us forget the unhappy past in 
the brightening prospects of the future. — Whittier, 



OUR COUNTRY. 349 



THE UNION AND ITS RESULTS. 




^^^^^ERELY to fill up the wilderness with a popula- 
^'(®®w)W? ^^^^ provided with the ordinary institutions and 
'^^^D carrying on the customary pursuits of civilized 
'^ life — though surely no mean achievement — was, 

:>/^'^ by no means, the whole of the work allotted to the 
United States, and thus far performed with signal 
activity, intelligence, and success. The founders of 
America and their descendants have accomplished more and 
better things. On the basis of a rapid geographical exten- 
sion and with the force of teeming numbers they have, in 
the very infancy of their political existence, successfully 
aimed at higher progress in a generous civilization. The 
mechanical arts have been cultivated with unusual aptitude. 
Agriculture, manuf^ictures, commerce, navigation, whether 
by sails or by steam, and the art of printing in all its forms, 
have been pursued with surprising skill. Great improve- 
ments have been made in all those branches of industry, 
and in the machinery pertaining to them, which have been 
eagerly adopted in Europe. A more adequate provision has 
been made for popular education than in almost any other 
country. There are more seminaries in the United States 
where a respectable academical education may be obtained — 
more, I still mean, in proportion to the population than in 
any other country, except Germany. The fine arts have 
reached a high degree of excellence. The taste for music is 
rapidly spreading in town and country ; and every year 
witnesses productions from the pencil and the chisel of 
American sculptors and painters' which would adorn any 



350 ^^^ COUNTRY. 

gallery in the world. Our astronomers, mathematicians, 
naturalists, chemists, engineers, jurists, publicists, historians, 
poets, novelists, and lexicographers have placed themselves 
on a level with those of the elder world. The best dic- 
tionaries of the English -language since Johnson are those 
published in America. Our Constitutions, whether of the 
United States or of the separate States, exclude all public 
provision for the maintenance of religion, but in no part of 
Christendom is it more generously supported; sacred science 
is pursued as diligently, and the pulpit commands as high a 
degree of respect in the United States as in those countries 
where the Church is publicly endowed ; while the American 
missionary operations have won the admiration of the civil- 
ized world. Nowhere, I am persuaded, are there more 
liberal contributions to public- spirited and charitable objects. 
In a word, there is no branch of the mechanical or fine arts, 
no department of science, exact or applied, no form of polite 
literature, no description of social improvement, in which, 
due allowance being made for the means and resources at 
command, the progress of the United States has not been 
satisfactory, and in some respects astonishing. 

At this moment the rivers and seas of the globe are 
navigated with that marvellous application of steam as a 
propelling power which was first effected by Fulton. The 
harvests of the civilized world are gathered by American 
reapers; the newspapers which lead the journalism of 
Europe are printed^on American presses ; there are railroads 
in Europe constructed by American engineers and travelled 
by American locomotives ; troops armed with American 
weapons, and ships of war built in American dockyards. 
In the factories of Europe there is machinery of American 
invention or improvement ; in their observatories, telescopes 



OUR COUNTRY. 351 

of American construction, and apparatus of American in- 
vention for recording the celestial phenomena. America 
contests with Europe the introduction into actual use of the 
electric telegraph, and her mode of operating it as adopted 
through the French empire ; American authors in almost 
every department are found on the shelves of European 
libraries. It is true no American Homer, Virgil, Dante, 
Copernicus, Shakespeare, Bacon, Milton, Newton has risen 
on the v/orld. These mighty geniuses seem to be exceptions 
in the history of the human mind. Favorable circumstances 
do not produce them, nor does the absence of favorable cir- 
cumstances prevent their appearance. Homer rose in the 
dawn of Grecian culture ; Virgil flourished in the court of 
Augustus ; Dante ushered in the birth of the new European 
civilization j Copernicus was reared in a Polish cloister; 
Shakespeare was trained in the green-room of the theatre ; 
Milton was formed while the elements of English thought 
and life were ferm.enting toward a great political and moral 
revolution ; Newton, under the profligacy of the Restoration. 
Ages may elapse before any country will produce a man like 
these, as two centuries have passed since the last mentioned 
of them was born. But if it is really a matter of reproach 
to the United States that, in the comparatively short period 
of their existence as a people, they have not added another 
name to this illustrious list (which is equally true of all the 
other nations of the earth), they may proudly boast of one 
example of life and character, one career of disinterested 
service, one model of public virtue, one type of human ex- 
cellence, of which all the countries and all the ages may be 
searched in vain for the parallel. I need not — on this day I 
need not — speak the peerless name. It is stamped on your 
hearts, it glistens in your eyes, it is written on every page 



352 OUR COUNTRY. 

of your history, on the battlefields of the Revolution, on the 
monuments of your fathers, on the portals of your capitols. 
It is heard ill every breeze that whispers over the fields of 
independent America. And he was all our own. He grew 
up on the soil of America ; he was nurtured at her bosom. 
She loved and trusted him in his youth; she honored and 
revered him in his age ; and, though she did not wait for 
death to canonize his name, his precious memory with each 
succeeding year has sunk more deeply into the hearts of his 
countrymen . — Echcard Everett. 



^VHAT WE OAVE TO THE UNION. 

<^HE influence of the government on us is like that 
^^ of the atmosphere around us. Its benefits are so 
^^ silent and unseen that they are seldom thought 




of or appreciated. We seldom think of the single 
element of oxygen in the air we breathe ; and yet, 
let this simple, unseen and unfelt agent be withdrawn, 
this life-giving element be taken away from this all-per- 
vading fluid around us, and what instant and appalling 
changes would take place in all organic creation. 

It may be. that we are all that we are in "spite of the 
General Government;" but it may be that without it w^e 
should have been far different from what we are now. It is 
true there is no equal part of the earth with natural resources 
superior, perhaps, to ours. That portion of this country 
known as the Southern States, stretching from the Chesa- 
peake to the Rio Grande, is fully equal to the picture drawn 
by the honorable and eloquent Senator last night, in all natu- 
ral capacities. But how many ages and centuries passed 



OUR COUNTRY. 353 

before these capacities were developed to reach this advanced 
age of civilization? There these same hills, rich in ore, these 
same rivers, same valleys and plains, are as they have been 
since they came from the hand of the Creator ; uneducated 
and uncivilized man roamed over them, for how long no 
history informs us. 

It was only under our institutions that they could be de- 
veloped. Their development is the result of the enterprise 
of our people under operations of the government and insti- 
tutions under which we have lived. Even our people, with- 
out these, never would have done it. The organization of 
society has much to do with the development of the natural 
resources of any country or any land. The institutions of a 
people, political and moral, are the matrix in which the germ 
of their organic structure quickens into life — takes root and 
develops in form, nature and character. Our institutions 
constitute the basis, the matrix, from which spring all our 
characteristics of development and greatness. Look at 
Greece. There is the same fertile soil, the same blue sky, 
the same inlets and harbors, the same ^gean, the same 
Olympus ; there is the same land where Homer sung, where 
Pericles spoke ; it is in nature the same old Greece — but it is 
living Greece no more. 

Descendants of the same people inhabit the country ; yet 
what is the reason of this mighty difference? In the midst 
of present degradation we see the glorious fragments of an- 
cient works of art — temples with ornaments and inscriptions 
that excite wonder and admiration — the remains of a once 
high order of civilization which have outlived the language 
they spoke — upon them all Ichabod is written — their glory 
has departed. Why is this so ? I answer, their institutions 
have been destroyed. These were but the fruits of their 

23 



354 OUR COUNTRY. 

forms of government^ the matrix from which their grand de- 
velopment sprung, and when once the institutions of the 
people have been destroyed, there is no earthly power that 
can bring back the Promethean spark to kindle them here 
again, any more than in that ancient land of eloquence, 
poetry, and song. 

The same may be said of Italy. Where is Rome, once the 
mistress of the world ? There are the same seven hills now, 
the same soil^ the same natural resources; nature is the 
same, but what a ruin of human greatness meets the eye of 
the traveller throughout the length and breadth of that most 
down-trodden land ! Why have not the people of that 
heaven-favored clime the spirit that animated their fathers ? 
Why this sad difference ? 

It is the destruction of her institutions that has caused it, 
and, my countrymen, if we shall in an evil hour rashly pull 
down and destroy those institutions which the patriotic band 
of our fathers labored so long and so hard to build up, and 
which have done so much for us and the world, who can 
venture the prediction that similar results will not ensue? 
Let us avoid it if we can. I trust the spirit is among us 
that will enable us to do it. Let us not rashly try the ex- 
periment, for if it fails, as it did in Greece and Italy, and in 
the South American republics, and in every other place 
wherever liberty is once destroyed, it may never be restored 
to us again. — Hon. A, H. Stephens. 



BUT ONE UNITKD STATES. 

fHAVE travelled far, and have seen the best of all the 
countries of all this world, and there is but one United 
States of America in the world. — Father Taylor, 



OUR COUNTRY. 



355 




\> 



cZa) 



THE WHOLE. UNION. 

E cannot do with less than the whole Union ; to us it 
admits of no division. In the veins of our children 
flow Northern and Southern blood ; how shall it be 
separated? — who will put asunder the best affections of the 
heart, the noblest instincts of our nature? We love the 
land of our adoption : so do we that of our birth. Let us 
ever be true to both, and always exert ourselves in main- 
taining the unity of our country, the integrity of the repub- 
lic. — S. S. Pre7itiss. 



THE TRUE GLORY OF AMERICA. 



TALIA'S vales and fountains, 

Though beautiful ye be, 
I love my soaring mountains 

And forests more than ye ; 
And though a dreamy greatness rise 

From out your cloudy years, 
Like hills on distant stormy skies. 

Seem dim through Nature's tears, 
Still, tell me not of years of old, 

Of ancient heart and clime; 
Ours is the land and age of gold, 

And ours the hallow'd time! 




The jewellM crown and sceptre 
Of Greece have pass'd away ; 

And none, of all who wept her, 
Could bid her splendor jstay. 

The world has shaken with the tread 



356 OUR COUNTRY. 

Of iron-sandall'd crime — 
And, lo ! overshadowing all the dead^ 

The conqueror stalks sublime! 
Then ask I not for crown and plume 

To nod above my land ; 
The victor's footsteps point to doom, 

Graves open round his hand ! 

Rome ! with thy pillared palaces, 

And sculptured heroes all, 
Snatched, in their warm, triumphal days, 

To Art's high festival ; 
Home ! with thy giant sons of power, 

Whose pathway was on thrones, 
Who built their kingdoms of an hour 

On yet unburied bones — 
I would not have my land like thee, 

So lofty — yet so cold ! 
Be -hers a lowlier majesty, 

In yet a nobler mould. 

Thy marbles — works of wonder ! 

In thy victorious days. 
Whose lips did seem to sunder 

Before the astonished gaze ; 
When statue glared on statue there, 

The living on the dead — 
And men as silent pilgrims were 

Before some sainted head ! 
O, not for faultless marbles yet 

Would I the light forego 
That beams when other lights have set, 

And Art herself lies low ! 

O, ours a holier hope shall be 
Than consecrated bust, 




^ OUR COUNTRY, 357 

Some loftier mean of memory 

To snatch us from the dust; 
And ours a sterner art than this 

Shall fix our image here — 
The spirit's mould of loveliness — 

A nobler Belvidere ! 

Then let them bind with bloomless flowers 

The busts and urns of old — 
A fairer heritage be ours, 

A sacrifice less cold ! 
Give honor to the great and good, 

And wreathe the living brow. 
Kindling with Virtue's mantling blood, 

And pay the tribute now. 

So, when the good and great go down, 

Their statues shall arise. 
To crowd those temples of our own. 

Our fadeless memories ! 
And when the sculptured marble falls, 

And Art goes in to die. 
Our forms shall live in holier halls. 

The Pantheon of the sky. . 

— Greenville MelUn. 

PATRIOTISM. 

REATHES there the man with soul so dead, 
Who never to himself hath said. 
This is my own, my native land? 
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned, 
As home his footsteps he hath turned. 
From wandering on a foreign strand ? 
If such there breathe, go, mark him well ; 
For him no minstrel raptures swell ! 



358 OUR COUNTRY. 

High though his titles, proud his name, 
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim : 
Despite those titles, power and pelf, 
The wretch, concentered all in self, 
Living, shall forfeit fair renown. 
And doubly dying, shall go down 
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung, 
Unwept, unhonored and unsung. 

—Sir Walter Scott 



FREEDOM AND PATRIOTISM. 

nOD has stamped upon our very humanity this 
rMl^^^lK^' very impress of freedom. It is the unchartered 
>3^^^^ prerogative of human nature. A soul ceases to 
l^Xfif^ be a soul in proportion as it ceases to be free. 
Strip it of this, and you strip it of one of its 
essential and characteristic attributes. It is this that 
draws the footsteps of the wild Indian to his wide and 
boundless desert paths, and makes him prefer them to the 
gay saloons and soft carpets of sumptuous palaces. It is 
this that makes it so difficult to bring him within the pale 
of artificial civilization. Our roving tribes are perishing — a 
sad sacrifice upon the altar of their wild freedom. They 
come among us and look with childish wonder upon the per- 
fection of our arts and the splendor of our habitations ; they 
submit with ennui and weariness, for a few daj's, to our 
burdensome forms and restraints and then turn their faces 
to their forest homes, and resolve to push those homes on- 
ward till they sink in the Pacific waves, rather than not be 
free. It is thus that everj^ people is attached to its country, 
just in proportion as it is free. No matter if that country 



OUR COUNTRY, 359 

be in the rocky fastnesses of Switzerland, amidst the snows 
of Tartary, or on the most barren and lonely island shore ; 
no matter if that country be so poor as to force away its 
children to other and richer lands for employment and sus- 
tenance ; yet when the songs of those free homes chance to 
full upon the exile's ear, no soft and ravishing airs that wait 
upon the timid feastings of Asiatic opulence ever thrilled 
the heart with such mingled rapture and agony as those 
simple tones. Sad mementos might they be of poverty and 
want and toil ; yet it was enough that they were mementos 
of happy freedom. And more than once has it been neces- 
eary to forbid by military orders, in the armies of the Swires 
mercenaries, the singing of their native songs. And such 
an attachment, do I believe, is found in our own people, to 
their native country ! It is the country of the free, and that 
consideration compensates for the want of many advantages 
which other countries possess over us. And glad am I tliat 
it opens wide its hospitable gc,tes to many a noble but perse- 
cuted citizen from the dungeons of Austria and Italy, and 
the imprisoning castles and citadels of Poland. Here may 
they find rest, as they surely find sympathy, though it is 
saddened with many bitter remembrances ! Yes, let me be 
free ; let me go and come at my own will ; let me do busi- 
ness, make journeys without a vexatious police or insolent 
soldier to watch my steps ; let me think, and do, and speak 
w^iat I please, subject to no limit but that which is set by 
the common weal; subject to no law but that which conscience 
binds upon me, and I will bless my country and love its 
most rugged rocks and its most barren soil. 

I have seen my fellow-countrymen and have been with 
them a fellow-wanderer in other lands ; and little did I see 
or feel to warrant the apprehension sometimes expressed 



360 OUR COUNTRY 

that foreign travel would weaken our patriotic attachments. 
One sigh for home — home, arose from all hearts. And why, 
from palaces and courts — why, from galleries of the arts 
where the marble softens into life, and painting sheds an 
almost living presence of beauty around it — why, from the 
mountain's awful brow, and the lovely valleys and lakes 
touched with the sunset hues of old romance — why, from 
those venerable and touching ruins to which our very heart 
grows — why, from all these scenes, were the lookings beyond 
the swellings of the Atlantic wave to a dearer and holier spot 
of earth — their own country ? Doubtless it was, in part, be- 
cause they knew that there was no oppression, no pitiful exac- 
tion of pett}^ tyranny ; because, that there, they knew, was 
no accredited and irresistible religious denomination ; because, 
that there, thej knew, they should not meet the odious 
soldier at every corner, nor swarms of imploring beggars, 
the victims of misrule ; that there no curse causeless did fall, 
and no blight worse than plague and pestilence did descend 
amidst the pure dews of heaven ; because, in fine, that there, 
they knew, was liberty — upon all the green hills and amidst 
all the peaceful valleys — liberty, the wall of fire around the 
humblest home — the crown of glory, studded with her ever 
blazing stars upon the proudest mansion. 

My friends, upon our own homes that blessing rests, that 
guardian care and glorious crown ; and when we return to 
those homes, and so long as we dwell in them — so long as 
no oppressor s foot invades their thresholds, let us bless them 
and hallow them as the homes of freedom ! Let us make 
them too the homes of a noble freedom — of freedom from 
vice, from evil, from passion, from every corrupting bondage 
of the soul — Orville Dewey, 



OUR COUNTRY. 



361 




THE IMMORTALITY OF PATRIOTS. 

HAT parent, as he conducts his son to Mount 
Auburn or to Bunker Hill, will not, as he pauses 
^fP^^W5 before their monumental statues, seek to heighten 
I ^-^ his reverence for virtue, for patriotism, for science, 
for learning, for devotion to the public good, as he 
bids him contemplate the form of that grave and ven- 
erable Winthrop, who left his pleasant home in Eng- 
land to come and found a new republic in this untrodden 
wilderness ; of that ardent and intrepid Otis, who first struck 
out the spark of American independence ; of that noble 
Adams, its most eloquent champion on the floor of Con- 
gress ; of that martyr Warren, who laid down his life in its 
defence ; of that self-taught Bowditch, who, without a guide, 
threaded the starry mazes of the heavens; of that Story, 
honored at home and abroad as one of the brightest lumin- 
aries of the law, and by a felicity, of which I believe there 
is no other example, admirably portrayed in marble by his 
son ? What citizen of Boston, as he accompanies the stranger 
around its streets, guiding him through its busy thorough- 
fares, to its wharves crowded with vessels which range every 
sea and gather the produce of every climate — up to the 
dome of the Capitol, which commands as lovely a landscape 
as can delight the eye or gladden the heart, will not, as he 
calls his attention at last to the statues of Franklin and 
Webster, exclaim, '' Boston takes pride in her natural posi- 
tion, she rejoices in her beautiful environs, she is grateful for 
her material prosperity; but richer than the merchandise 
stored in palatial warehouses, greener than the slopes of sea- 



362 OUB COUNTRY. 

girt islets, lovelier than this encircling panorama of land 
and sea, of field and hamlet, of lake and stream, of garden 
and grove, is the memory of her sons, native and adopted; 
the character, services and fame of those who have benefited 
and adorned their day and generation. Our children, and 
the schools at which they are trained; our citizens, and the 
services they have rendered; these are our jewels — these 
our abiding treasures." 

Yes, your long rows of quarried granite may crumble to 
the dust ; the corn-fields in yonder villages, ripening to the 
sickle, may, like the plains of stricken Lombardy, be kneaded 
into bloody clods by the madding wheels of artillery; this 
populous city, like the old cities of Etruria and the Cam- 
pagna Eomana, may be desolated by the pestilence which 
walketh in darkness, may decay with the lapse of time, and 
the busy mart, which now rings with the joyous din of trade, 
become as lonely and still as Carthage or Tyre, as Babylon 
and Nineveh; but the names of the great and good shall 
survive the desolation and the ruin ; the memory of the wise, 
the brave, the patriotic, shall never perish. Yes, Sparta is 
a wheat-field ; a Bavarian prince holds court at the foot of 
the Acropolis; the travelling virtuoso digs for marbles in 
the Roman Forum, and beneath the ruins of the temple of 
Jupiter Capitolinus ; but Lycurgus and Leonidas, and Milti- 
ades and Demosthenes, and Cato and Tully "still live;" 
and He still lives, and all the great and good shall live in 
the heart of ages, while marble and bronze shall endure-; 
and when marble and bronze have perished, ihey shall " still 
live " in memory, so long as men shall reverence Law, and 
honor Patriotism, and love Liberty ! — Eclvxird Everett. 

I AM not a Virginian, but an American. — Patrick Henri/. 




OUR COUNTRY. 3^3 



SHRINES OF PATRIOTISM. 

OW sleep the brave, who sink to rest 
By all their couiitry^s wishes blessed ? 
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold, 
Returns to deck their hallowed mould, 
She there shall dress a sweeter sod 
Than Fancy's feet have ever trod. 
By fairy hands their knell is rung ; 
By forms unseen their dirge is sung ; 
There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray, 
To bless the turf that wraps their clay j 
And Freedom shall a while repair, 
To dw.ell a weeping hermit there. 

— William Collins. 



THE RESPONSIBILITY OF OUR 
COUNTRY. 

ET it be remembered, that it has ever been the 
pride and boast of America, that the rights, for 
which she contended, were the rights of human 
nature. By the blessing of the Author of these 
ights on the means exerted for their defence, they 
have prevailed over all opposition. No instance has 
heretofore occurred, nor can any instance be expected 
hereafter to occur, in which the unadulterated forms of re- 
publican government can pretend to so fair an opportunity 
for justifying themselves by their fruits. 

In this view, the citizens of the United States are respon- 
sible for the greatest trust ever confided to a political society. 
If justice, good faith, honor, gratitude, and all the other 




364 OUR COUNTRY. 

qualities which ennoble the character of a nation, and fulfil 
the ends of government, be the fruits of our establishments, 
the cause of Liberty will acquire a dignity and lustre which 
it has never yet enjoyed ; and an example will be set which 
cannot but have the most favorable influence on the rights 
of mankind. 

If, on the other hand, our government should be unfor- 
tunately blotted with the reverse of these cardinal and es- 
sential virtues, the great cause which we have engaged to 
vindicate will be dishonored and betrayed; and the last and 
fairest experiment in favor of the rights of human nature 
will be turned against them ; and their patrons and friends 
exposed to be insulted and silenced by the votaries of tyranny 
and usurpation, storm of battle, and sprinkled with the 
blood of falling comrades. We honor their sublime devo- 
tion, we applaud their heroic deeds. Their bright example 
of devotion to principle and fidelity to duty should incite us 
of this age in America to accept joyfully and bravely the 
responsibilities of our position, and like them be ever ready 

"To take 
Occasion by the hand, and make 
The bounds of freedom wider yet.^' 

^- James Madison. 



Greece gave freedom birth ; Eome fondled the nursling 
and gave it swaddling clothes; Switzerland rocked its 
cradle ; and America nursed it into the giant of the ages, 
and all nations are preparing to burn incense to its over- 
shadowing majesty. 

—J, H. Worst 



OVE CO US TRY. 365 



SITUATION OF AMERICA. 

I 

*T is not to inflate national vanity, nor to swell a 
[?3)^ light and empty feeling of self-importance, but it 
"^fm^ is that we may judge justly of our situation, and 
^^r^u* of our own duties, that I earnestly urge this con- 
^^^^^-»^ siderat'on of our position and our character among 
^ the nations of the earth. It cannot be denied, but by 
1 those who would dispute against the sun, that with 
America, and in America, a new era commences in human 
aflfairs. This era is distinguished by free representative 
governments, by entire religious liberty, by improved sys- 
tems of national intercourse, by a new-awakened and an un- 
conquerable spirit of free inquiry, and by a diffusion of 
knowledge through the community, such as has been before 
altogether unknown or unheard of. . . . America, America, 
our country, fellow-citizens, our owm dear and native land, 
is inseparably connected, fast bound up, in fortune and by 
fate, with these great interests ; if they fall, we fall with 
them ; if they stand, it will be because we have upholden 
them. Let us contemplate, then, this connection, which 
binds the prosperity of others to our own ; and let us man- 
fully discharge all the duties which it imposes. If we cherish 
the virtues and the principles of our fathers, Heaven will 
assist us to carry on the work of human liberty and human 
happiness. Auspicious omens cheer us. Great examples 
are before us. Our own firmament now shines brightly upon 
our path. Washington is in the clear upper sky. Those 
other stars have now joined the American constellation ; 
they circle round their centre, and the heavens beam with 




366 OVE COUNTRY. 

new light. Benecath this illumination let us walk the course 
of life, and at its close devoutly commend our beloved coun- 
try, the common parent of us all, to the Divine benignity. — 
Daniel Webster. 

OUR COUNTRY'S DEFENCE. 

UT if you ask me, what will save our country from 
the scourge of war, what will prevent it from be- 
coming the victim of intoxication and licentious- 
ness, what will save it from being exhausted by 
civil feuds or torn up by the shattering artillery of 
war? my answer is, Bible education. If you ask me, 
what will save us from that infidelity that revels in its 
license without control, and from that superstition that exer- 
cises a despotism over soul and body ? — if you ask me, what 
will save us from those wild and sensual opinions that rise 
like miasma from the fens and marshes of popular ignorance, 
or what will protect us from those deadly passions that breed 
like reptiles beneath a scorching sun? — my answer is, 
Christian education. The good and the pious of past ages 
have left us noble heritages: we are bound to perpetuate 
them. We have received from our fathers an open Bible; we 
have been taught to read, to understand and to rejoice with 
truth. Let us resolve, that when we lie down, as we must lie 
down, upon the last bed, and when our children shall gather 
around us to bid us a last farewell, to be able to tell to them, 
If we have not increased the blessings of your ancient 
heritage, we have not impaired them ; if we have not added 
to your religious freedom, we have not crushed it ; if we 
have done nothing to make you nobler, holier, happier, we 
have done nothing to make you worse. — Daniel Webster, 



OUR COUNTRY. 3^7 



OUR REPUBLIC TRIUMPHANT. 

^o'r^/r^T.IlETCHING from ocean to ocean, teeming with 
'^^r^ population, bountiful in resources of all kinds, 
^^^ and thrice happy in universal enfranchisement, it 
will be more than conqueror — nothing too vast 
for its power, nothing too minute for its care. Tri- 
imphant over the foulest wrong ever inflicted, after the 
^' bloodiest war ever waged, it will know the majesty of 
right and the beauty of peace ; prepared always to uphold 
the one and to cultivate the other. Strong in its own mighty 
stature, filled with all the fulness of a new life, and covered 
with a panoply of renown, it will confess that no dominion 
is of value which does not contribute to human happiness. 
Born in this latter day, and the child of its own struggles, 
without ancestral claims, but heir of all the ages, it will 
stand forth to assert the dignity of man ; and, wherever any 
of the human family is to be succored, there its voice will 
reach, as the voice of Cromwell reached across France even 
to the persecuted mountaineers of the Alps. Such will be 
this Republic — upstart among the nations; ay, as the steam- 
engine, the telegraph, and chloroform are upstart. Com- 
forter and helper like these, it can know no bounds to its 
empire over a willing world. — Charles Sumner. 



While just government protects all in their religious 
rights, true religion affords to government its surest sup- 
port. — George Washington. 




368 OUB COUNTRY, 



BLESSINGS OF A FREE GOVERNMENT. 

'E cannot omit to notice how rapidly the ideas of 
old times have been liberalized in their practical 
application in this country, not only in law, poli- 
tics, government and industry, but in domestic 
and social life as well as in religion, science and lit- 
^. erature. The stiff forms of the old law practice have 
» ' passed away. Neither interest, race, nor religious belief 
now disqualifies a witness. Imprisonment for debt, except 
in cases of fraud, is abolished. Homestead and exemption 
laws protect the poor. Divorces are obtainable and married 
women's propertj' rights secured. Equal distribution of 
property is secured to all heirs alike, and primogeniture and 
entailments are abolished. Simplicity of deeds and transfers 
have been introduced, security of possession enforced by lib- 
eral statutes of limitation, and many other modifications of 
the old law adopted tending to equality among all classes 
and races. So the criminal code has been toned down and 
prisoners have bail, and counsel and witnesses are allowed at 
the public charge; and prisoners may even be witnesses for 
themselves. The stocks and the w4iipping-post are no more. 
So everywhere schools are practically free. Charities, asy- 
lums, invalid homes, cover the land, so that the young and 
the imbecile, the erring and the insane, are cared for by pri- 
vate munificence or at the public charge. AVhat the old 
kings spent on retainers and armies, the young republic de- 
votes to charities. And religious intolerance in our country 
is quite gone. Excommunication from the fold of the church 
is a dead letter. Each can worship under his own vine and 



OUR COUNTRY. 3g9 

fig-tree with none to molest or make liim afraid, and God 
alone can call any man to account for his religious belief. 
The state aids no church, but equally protects all. The 
cathedral and the synagogue peacefully confront each other, 
the High Church and the Conventicle are friendly neighbors^ 
and even the Free-thinkers' Hall is under protection of law. 
And so, too, industry is free. Unlike the old countries, 
every man here may follow any pursuit without government 
license or legally prescribed apprenticeship. No property 
qualification is required for public place, nor even for social 
standing. Every one may take his place in that rank of 
life for which he can shov/ himself fitted. Husbands, wives 
and children are bound together practically by the law of 
love alone. So freedom of opinion, of speech, of the press, 
is everywhere recognized and scarcely ever invaded unless 
it be momentarily in the excitement of political contests, or 
in the occasional outburst of popular wrath at some flagrant 
abuse of freedom. — General Durhin Ward. 



V/E MUST TAKE CARE OF OUR 
GOVERNMENT. 

S we take care of our work, our life and our 
homes, we must also take care of our govern- 
ment. In a government like ours there is one 
sure law. It is like that of the water-works in my 
city, through which the water rises to the exact 
line of the water-mark in the tower, and not a line 
above that, no matter if the whole city should pray to 
have it so; and so in our central and State governments, in 
everything we have to our name, as citizens of this Re- 

24 




370 ^^^ COUNTRY. 

public, we shall find that the public virtue, manliness and 
honesty in Washington, in Springfield and in Madison are just 
the marrow of the private nature and good sense of the 
citizens who elect these men to take care of the machine. 
We must have honesty, intelligence, courage and manliness 
in ourselves, or we shall not have it where it can do most 
good and most harm. So we must not elect our man be- 
cause he can make a fine speech, but because he is a man 
to be trusted and is trusted by those who know him best. 
He may make very fine speeches and do very mean things. 
Nothing comes cheaper than good talk, and I think we have 
had about enough of it within the last few years to open our 
eyes. We are in very much the condition the people Vv^ere 
in at a town on one of our South-western rivers. There 
was an old skipper who ran a steamboat up and down the 
river, and was by all odds the most profane man irr that 
section. But one day his boat ran into a mud bank, near 
the little town, and there she stuck, one end in the water 
and the other in the mud, and would not stir an inch for all 
his swearing. So, thinking what was best to be done, he 
called one of the deck hands and said: "You go up into 
that air town, and find the folks who belong to meetin'; tell 
'em I got religion and want 'em to come and hold prayer 
meet'n on my boat." The news made a vast sensation ; the 
people came in a crowd ; they found the old skipper stand- 
ing ready to receive them. '' Go aft, brethren," he said, " go 
aft, go aft," and aft they went, until the weight at the water 
end weighed the steamer down, and she began to slip into 
deep water. This was what he wanted ; he saw her clear 
and then yelled : '^ Meet'n's out, d — n you, jump ashore, 
quick!" and jump they did, and that was the end of his 
conversion. 



OUE CO UN TRY, 371 

That is the way of some of the men who want to repre- 
sent us ; they belong to both sides, always did and always 
-svill. What they want is to float their venture on false pre- 
tences. We must watch them, take care of them, and 
whether we are Democrat or Republican, elect only the man 
of a tried honesty, and then when we get hold of such a 
man we must stand by him and hold up his hands and his 
heart. Never mind what the other side says in the heat 
and passion of party strife ; the spawn of party strife is the 
shame and disgrace of our era. It breaks down all the 
guards of truth and fair speech, looks on ev«ry man not on 
its side with an evil eye, and pursues its antagonists with 
the relentlessness of the fiend. We can have no part or lot 
in such mean work. We have to search for and find virtue, 
honesty and fidelity in Democrat and Republican alike, to 
maintain those who are well proven in these things at all 
costs, and no other kind, and then there can be no doubt 
but that we are to have through the ages to come, a noble, 
beautiful and strong Republic. — Rev. Robert Collyer, D, D, 



PUBLIC VIRTUE. 

HOPE that in all that relates to personal firm- 
ness; all that concerns a just appreciation of the 
insignificance of human life — whatever may be 
attempted to threaten or alarm a soul not easily 
swayed by opposition, or awed or intimidated by 
^ menace — a stout heart and a steady eye, that can 
survey, unmoved and undaunted, any mere personal 
perils that assail this poor, transient, perishing frame, I may, 
without disparagement, compare with other men. 




372 ^^^ COUXTEY. 

But there is a sort of courage, which, I frankly confess it, 
I do not possess — a boldness to which I dare not aspire, a 
valor which I cannot covet: I cannot lay myself down in 
the way of the welfare and happiness of my country. That 
I cannot, I have not the courage to do. I cannot interpose 
the power with which I may be invested — a power conferred, 
not for my personal benefit, not for my aggrandizement, but 
for my country's good — to check her onward march to great- 
ness and glory. I have 'iiot courage enough, I am too cow- 
ardly for that. 

I would not, I dare not, in the exercise of such a trust, 
lie down and place my body across the path that leads my 
country to prosperity and happiness. This is a sort of 
courage widely different from that which a man may display 
in his private conduct and personal relations. Personal and' 
private courage is totally distinct from that higher and nobler 
courage which prompts the patriot to offer himself a volun- 
tary sacrifice to his countrj's good. 

Apprehensions of the imputation of the want of firmness 
sometimes impel us to perform rash and inconsiderate acts. 
It is the greatest courage to be able to bear the imputation 
of the want of courage. But pride, vanity, egotism, so un- 
amiable and offensive in private^ are vices which partake of 
the character of crimes, in the conduct of public affairs. 
The unfortunate slave of these passions cannot see beyond 
the little, pettj^, contemptible circle of his own personal 
interests. All his thoughts are withdrawn from his country, 
and concentrated on his consistency, his firmness — liimseJf. 

The high, the exalted, the sublime emotions of a patriot- 
ism, which, soaring toward heaven, rises far above all mean, 
low, or selfish things, and is absorbed by one soul-transport- 
ing thought of the good and the glory of one's country, are 



OUR COUNTRY. 373 

never felt in Ms impenetrable bosom. That patriotism, 
which, catching its inspirations from the immortal God, and 
leaving at an immeasurable distance below all lesser, grovel- 
ling, personal interests and feelings, animates and prompts 
to deeds of self-sacrifice, of valor, of devotion, and of death 
itself — that is public virtue; that is the noblest^ the sublimest 
of all public virtues. — Henry Clay, 



OUR COUNTRY FIRST, LAST, AND 
ALV\^AYS. 

'HE first defence to any people is in the love of 
country. The nation is one great family, with 
one common interest, welfare and destiny; a 
nation dwelling together in love must be a happy 
people. Kindness begets kindness, and love awakens 
love ; this is that magic touch which makes the world 
of kin. A confederacy like ours cannot be held together 
by the strong arm of a central government ; if the band of 
unity is gone, such a union is no whit better than a rope of 
sand. The danger which besets us is not in individual sins 
which fasten on the body politic — we may labor with for- 
fearance and firmness for their removal. Our danger lies 
in that spirit of selfishness and self-will which forgets brother- 
hood and God. In a nation like ours, with its countless dif- 
fering interests of rival productionsj its conflicts of trade and 
sectional rivalries of commerce, we must differ on questions 
of public policy ; but it may be the manly difference of 
manly men. Never did men differ more widely than the 
fathers of the republic ; never did earnest hearts battle with 
more zeal for their rival interests, nor contend more fiercely 




374 OUR COUNTRY, 

inch by inch in political struggles. Never did the rallying 
cry of parties take a deeper hold on its liege-men, or braver 
shouts of triumph herald in its victory. But there was a 
deeper love of country, which made the brotherhood of a 
nation, and a charity which more respected the opinions of 
those from whom they differ. 

The Christian patriot dare not close his eye to the evils 
which mar the nation ; for their removal he will work and 
pray, but never with rash hand tear down the sacred edifice 
of the Constitution, because some stains deface its walls. 
The query may well arise whether we are not fast reaching 
the time when the question is not of the right or wrong of 
this or that legislation, the benefit of this or that public pol- 
icy, but whether this or that party shall divide the spoils of 
office among its political camp-followers. We hear of angry 
words and fierce invectives of rumors of .corruption, of 
bribery in public office; thoy belong to no one party, they 
are not ranked under any one leader; these things came be- 
cause the people have lost sight, in the strifes of men for 
office, of that great destiny which God offers to Americans. 
I believe the love of country dwells in the people's hearts. 
The honest-hearted sons of toil will be true to the country 
and its Constitution. That love may have slumbered for a 
time, but the great heart of the country loill be true to itself. 
Its love cannot be hedged in by the paling of any man's 
dooryard. It loill sweep away every barrier of strife, and 
keep us one united people. — Bishop Whipple, 



The Republic of the United States is God's creation. 
Justin D. Fulton, D. D. 




OUR COUNTRY, 375 

NATIONAL GUARDS. 

^.HE perpetuity of our repuhllc is guarded and 
v> secured hy cherishing the Bible as the word of God, 



This government was founded upon the Bible. 
In its customs, in its enactments, in its judicial 
decisions, by its recognition of the Christian Sab- 
(Q bath, by its oaths in courts of justice, by its prayers in 
Congress, by its chaplains in the army and navy, by its 
stamp upon our coin, by its national thanksgiving, and by 
unnumbered other witnesses, it declares itself to be a re- 
ligious nation, with the Bible as its sacred book, yet it gives 
no national church. The open Bible, the grand old Saxon 
Bible, is our common treasure. The spirit of the govern- 
ment says : '' Open it, read it, worship God." A few years 
ago an African prince, while on a visit to England, asked 
Queen Victoria the secret of England's greatness. The 
queen did not send him to the Tower of London to look 
upon the iron-guarded jewels of the realm, but, presenting 
him a Bible, said : "'' Here is the secret of England's great- 
ness." So, when the nations ask for the secret of our pros- 
perity, let us point to the open Bible; let us point to a 
hundred thousand church spires— fingers of faith pointing 
heavenward; let us point to our Christian Sabbath, scill 
maintained in its pristine purity, as the most marked and 
cherished monuments of our national life. True lovers of 
their country will do it with grateful pride. The salt that 
preserves this nation and has given it progress and glory, 
the light that has shined to show it a pathway to exaltation, 
is from the Bible. It is a rock of diamonds, our nation's 



376 OUR COUNTRY, 

wealth. It is a chain of pearls, our nation's ornament. It 
is our sundial, by which to discern the times. It is our 
balance, by which to weigh our actions. 

Again : The perpetuity of our nation is guarded hy the 
Church. There never has been — let there never be here — a 
union of Church and State. Fifty thousand Protestant 
ministers proclaim the truths of our holy religion, and over 
six million members of orthodox churches — the vast ma- 
jority, we doubt not, loj^al to Christ — receive the word, to 
the ennobling and purifying of them as citizens. God has 
appointed his Church, to preserve^ refresh and bless the world 
— as clouds and mountain springs preserve, refresh and bless 
mankind. The cloud does not mantle forests and fields, but 
it sends down its showers to be their life. The springs do 
not turn wheels and push paddles, but, uniting their waters 
into rivulets and brooks, they pour down their forces to give 
us thrift, vitality and power. Such a union of spiritual and 
temporal things, of Church and State, of religion and poli- 
tics, is the need and promised redemption of the world. The 
souls of men are in bondage under sin. Every soul by right 
is God's. Within his realm, made royal by the blood of 
Christ, we become kings. The mission of the Church is to 
free imprisoned kings. Doing this, she offers to the nation 
loyal subjects, loyal citizens, and so the republic will become 
safe and enduring. 

Again : The perpetuity of the repuhlic is guarded hy free 
education. Free from sectarian control, established as they 
were, and perpetuated, as they have been, to give our chil- 
dren a knowledge of those rudiments that encourage them 
to industry, virtue, and the practice of duty, let us maintain 
them still endowed with their original purity and strength. 
And while we provide instruction in the sciences and in the 



OUR COUNTRY. 377 

arts, let us, as in times past, but more earnestly, teach the 
sciences of God as revealed in the Bible. Let us have no 
sectarian dogmas; they are born of man and not of God. 
The Bible is God's book, and therefore cannot be sectarian. 
No gift of our Father is sectarian. You might as well talk 
of sectarian rocks and trees, of sectarian soil, of sectarian 
oceans and stars, of a sectarian sun, as of a sectarian Bible. 
Will you deny the artisan's apprentice a knowledge of gold 
and diamonds? They are the gift of God. His laws are 
within and upon them. The boy must look upon them, 
handle them, and work upon them, if you would have him 
skilled in preparing them for use. We give open books in 
regard to the laws and duties of daily life. So let us give 
God's revelation, in which are the diamonds of thought and 
the gold of life. ^* Hear, ye children, the instruction of a 
father, and attending to know understanding." 
Another guard of our liberties is a free press : 

" The press all lauds shall sing ! 
The press, the press we bring 

All lands to bless ! 
O pallid want ! O labor stark ! 
Behold we bring the second ark — • 

The press, the press, the press." 

Apprehending its high mission, it becomes the nurse of 
arts ; it becomes the strong fence against wrong and oppres- 
sion. Upon it, as among the mightiest of human means, 
the arm of progress leans. Those who love right and 
virtue groan under the burden of an impure press. It has 
cursed this land. Its day is not yet passed. But, despite 
all these, the times are auspicious for a purer press ; 



378 OUE COUNTRY, 

" There are, thank heaven ! 
A noble troop, to whom this trust is given — 
Who, all unhribed, on Freedom's altar stand 
Faithful and firm, bright warders of the land," 
By them still lifts the press its arm abroad 
To guide all eager men along life's road ; ^ 

To cheer young genius — pity's tear to start, 
In truth's bold cause to rouse each fearless heart; 
O'er male and female quacks to shake the rod. 
And scourge the unsex'd thing that scorns her God ; 
To hunt corruption from her sacred den. 
And show the monster up, the gaze of wondering men ! " 

Another guard of our republic is found in the integrity of 
its men of husiness. A nation can long survive a prostration 
of its business. It can endure the shocks of war for a gen- 
eration, if its business men are firm in principle ; nay, it will 
escape many wars, and be free from the depression of hard 
times if its manufacturers and tradesmen tell the truth when 
they buy and sell. In times of financial embarrassment, the 
despondent people are prone to believe that all her manu- 
facturers and tradesmen are dishonest. It is not so ; it has 
never been so in this nation. The cities and villages of our 
broad land are made thrifty and safe by thousands upon 
thousands of honorable, upright, true men, whose word is as 
good as their bond ; and they stand against universal ruin, 
as the shores of the sea against the surging and the tides. 
Let confidence be established (and there is reason for it), let 
discretion prevail, and this nation enters upon a growing 
career of business prosperity. 

If you saw a hundred cables stretching from great tossing 
ships and converging tow^ard one point which was yet unseen ; 
if you saw the ships, under this power, meeting the waves 



OUR COUNTRY, 379 

and defeating the tides, you would say there was a strong 
anchor under the waters. If some of the ships should throw 
loose their cables and go to ruin, you would not suspect cable 
or anchor o:^ weakness. So in the business interests of our 
land, our best men have made their moorings upon the sound 
basis of integrity. Let us trust them, and they will not only 
save the nation but increase its strength. 

Another guard to our liberties is the elective franchise. It 
is safer to trust the great mass of the people, if they be in- 
dustrious and virtuous, than to trust a few statesmen. The 
wants, aspirations, hopes and desires of a great people will 
be better voiced by the multitude, with their right to speak 
through the newspaper and the ballot-box, than by a few 
choice men of the educated class. The elective franchise is 
not an inalienable right, such as "life, liberty, and the pur- 
suit of happiness," but it is an essential to a democratic gov- 
ernment. It is, we believe, an essential to the best govern- 
ment, and, if limited by wise restrictions, it will generally 
be found that in times of national danger or disaster, when 
the issues are clearly set forth, the people of such a nation 
as this will speak with such directness, wisdom and patriot- 
ism, as well-nigh to establish the proverb : Vox j^ojmli, Vox 
Deir 

The last guard of our nation's perpetuity I name, is the 
home. No race has a juster conception of home than the 
Anglo-Saxon. The dangers, sufferings and vicissitudes of 
two hundred and fifty years have made the typical American 
home the place of rest and confidence. It is, with us, the 
miniature republic — where none are slaves, where all are 
free. The republic by its laws and honored customs guards 
it, making " every man's house his castle," but no State ever 
gave to homes what homes gave" to the State. Our Ameri- 



380 



OUR COUNTRY. 



can homeSj when they have reared an altar, upon which 
piety and patriotism pLace self as the best offering, have each 
been like fountains feeding our national life. They have 
been, like the roots of our forest trees, sources from which 
the vital current has flowed, to give to the tree of liberty a 
wider reach and deeper ^lidi^e.^-Edioard P. Ingersoll^ D. D. 




OUR COUNTRY. 

Y country ! 'tis of thee, 
Sweet land of liberty, 

Of thee I sing : 
Land where my fathers died ! 
Land of the pilgrims' pride ! 
From every mountain side 

Let freedom ring ! 



My native country, thee, 
Land of the noble, free, 

Thy name I love ; 
I love thy rocks and rills; 
Thy woods and templed hills; 
My heart with rapture thrills 

Like that above. 



Let music swell the breeze, 
And ring from all the trees 

Sweet freedom's song : 
Let mortal tongues awake ; 
Let all that breathe partake ; 
Let rocks their silence break, 

The sound prolong. 



OUR CO US TRY. 



381 



On? fathers' God ! to Thee, 
Author of Liberty, 

To Thee we sins:. 
Long may our land be briglit 
Witli Freedom's lioly liglit; 
Protect us by thy might, 

Great God, our King I 

— Samuel F. Sinitli, 




OUR NATIONAL BANNER. 

LL hail to our glorious ensign : courage to the 
heart, and strength to the hand, to which, in all 
time, it shall be intrusted 1 May it ever wave 
in honor, in unsullied glory and patriotic hope, 
on the dome of the Capitol, on the country's strong- 
on the entented plain, on the wave-rocked top- 
mast, wlierever, on the earth's surface, the eye of the 
American shall behold it ! On whatsoever spot it is planted, 
fhere may freedom have a foothold, humanity a brave cham- 
pion, and religion an altar. Though stained with blood in a 
righteous cause, may it never in any cause he stained with 
shame. Alike, when its gorgeous folds shall wanton in lazy 
holiday triumphs on the summer breeze, and its battered 
fragments be dimly seen through the clouds of w\ar, may it 
be the joy and pride of the American heart. First raised 
in the cause of right and liberty, in that cause alone may it 
forever spread out its streaming blazonry to the battle and the 
storm. Having been borne victoriously across the continent, 
and on every sea, may virtue and freedom and peace forever 
follow where it leads the way. — Alexander H. Everett. 





382 OUR COUNTRY, 



HISTORY OF OUR FLAG. 

VHE history of our glorious old flag is of exceeding 
)\ interest, and brings back to us a throng of sacred 
and thrillingr associations. The banner of St. 
./^^ Andrew was blue, charged with a white altier or 
cross in the form of the letter X, and w^as used in 
Scotland as early as the eleventh century. The banner 
of St. George was white, charged with the red cross, 
and was used in Enghmd as early as the first part of the 
fourteenth century. By a royal proclamation, dated April 
12, 1700, these two crosses were joined together upon the 
same banner, forming the ancient national flag of England. 
It was not until Ireland, in 1801, w^as made a part of Great 
Britain, that the present national flag of England, so well 
known as the union jack, was completed. But it was the 
ancient flaor of Enorland that constituted the basis of our 
American banner. Various other flags had, indeed, been 
raised at other times by our colonial ancestors. But they 
were not particularly associated with, or at least, v/ere not 
incorporated into, and made a part of, the destined " Stars 
and Stripes." It was after Washington had taken command 
of the fresh army of the Revolution, at Cambridge, that 
(January 2, 1776) he unfolded before them the new flag of 
thirteen stripes of alternate red and white, having upion one 
of its corners the red and white crosses of St. George and 
St. Andrew, on a field of blue. And this was the standard 
which was borne into the city of Boston when it w^as evac- 
uated by the British troops and was entered by the Amer- 
ican army. Uniting, as it did, the flags of England and 



OUR COUNTRY. 383 

America, it showed that the colonists were not yet prepared 
to sever the tie that bound them to the mother country. 
^y that union of flags they claimed to be a vital and sub- 
stantial part of the empire of Great Britain, and demanded 
the rights and privileges which such a relation implied. Yet 
it was by these thirteen stripes that they made known the 
union also of the thirteen colonies, the stripes of white de- 
claring the purity and innocence of their cause, and the 
stripes of red giving forth defiance to cruelty and oppres- 
sion. 

On the 14th day of June, 1777, it was resolved by Con- 
gress, " That the flag of the thirteen United States be thir- 
teen stripes, alternate red and white, and that the union be 
thirteen white stars in the blue field." This resolution was 
made public September 3, 1776, and the flag that was first 
made and used in pursuance of it was that which led the 
Americans to victory at Saratoga. Here the thirteen stars 
w^ere arranged in a circle, as we sometimes see them now, in 
order better to express the idea of the union of the States. 
In 1794, there having been two more new States added to 
the Union, it was voted that the alternate stripes, as well as 
the circling stars, be fifteen in number, and the flag, as thus 
altered and enlarged, was the one which was borne through 
all the contests of the war of 1812. But it was thought 
that the flag would at length become too large if a new stripe 
should be added with every freshly admitted State. It was 
therefore enacted, in 1818, that a permanent return should 
be made to the original number of thirteen stripes, and that 
the number of stars should henceforth correspond to the 
growing number of States. Thus the flag would symbolize 
the Union as it might be at any given period of its history, 
and also as it was at the very hour of its birth. It was at 



V 



384 ^^^ COUNTRY. 

the same time suggested that these stars, instead of being ar- 
ranged in a circle, be formed into a single star — a suggestion 
which we occasionally see adopted. In fine, no particular 
order seems now to be observed with respect to the arrange- 
ment of the constellation. It is enough if only the whole 
number be there upon that azure field — the blue to be em- 
blematical of perseverance, vigilance and justice, each star to 
signify the glory of the State it may represent, and the 
whole to be eloquent forever of a Union that must be ^^one 
and insepara-ble." — Rev. Alfred P. Putnam. 



THE AMERICAN FLAG. 

HEN Freedom from her mountain height, 

Uufurl'd her standard to the air, 
She tore tlie azure robe of night, 

And set the stars of glory there. 
She mingled with its gorgeous dyes 
The milky baldric of the skies, 
And striped its pure celestial white 
With streakings of the morning light. 
Then, from his mansion in the sun, 
She called her eagle-bearer down, 
And gave into his mighty hand 
The symbol of her chosen land ! 

Majestic monarch of the cloud, 

Who rear'st aloft the regal form, 
To hear the tempest trumpings loud, 

And see the lightning lances driven. 
When strive the warriors of the storm, 
And rolls the thunder drum of heaven, — - 
Child of the Sun ! to thee 'tis given 




OUR COUNTRY. 335 

To guard the banner of the free. 
To hover in the sulphur smoke, 
To ward away the battle stroke, 
And bid its blendings shine afar, 
Like rainbows on the cloud of war, 
The harbingers of Victory ! 

Flag of the brave ! thy folds shall fly, 

The sign of hope and triumph high ! 
"When speaks the signal trumpet tone, 

And the long line comes gleaming on, 
Ere yet the life-blood, warm and wet. 
Has dimm'd the glistening bayonet, 
Each soldier^s eye shall brightly turn 
To where the sky-born glories burn. 
And as bis springing steps advance. 
Catch war and vengeance from the glance. 
And when the cannon, mouthing loud. 
Heave in wild wreaths the battle shroud. 
And gory sabres rise and fall 
Like shoots of flame on midnight pall, 
Then shall thy meteor glances glow. 
And cowering foes shall sink beneath 
Each gallant arm that strikes below 

That lovely messenger of death. 

Flag of the seas ! on ocean wave 
Thy stars shall glitter o'er the brave; 
When death, careering on the gale, 
Sweeps darkly round the bellied sail, 
And frightened waves rush wildly back 
Before the broadside's reeling rack, 
Each dying wanderer of the sea 
Shall look at once to heaven and thee, 
And smile to see thy splendors fly 
In triumph o'er his closing eye. 
25 



386 OUR COUNTRY. 

Flag of the free heart's hope and home, 

By angel hands to valor given ; 
Thy stars have lit the welkin dome, 

^ And all thy hues were born in heaven. 
Forever float that standard sheet. 

Where breathes the foe that falls before us. 
With Freedom's soil beneath our feet, 
And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us. 

— Joseph Rodman Drake. 



V^OD bless the flag ! let it float, and fill 

The sky with its beauty — our heart-strings thrill 
To the low, sweet chant of its wind-swept bars, 
And the chorus of all its clustered stars. 
Embrace it, O mothers, and heroes shall grow. 
While its colors blush warm on your bosoms of snow. 
Defend it, O fathers, there's no sweeter death 
Than to float its fair folds with a soldier's last breath ; 
And love it, O children, be true to the sires 
Who wove it in nain by the old camp-fires. 

— Samuel L. Simpson. 



OUR FLAG A POV/ER. 

UR flag is a power everywhere. One has justly 
said, " It is known, res|)ected, and feared round 
^-^^^^_ the entire globe. Wherever it goes, it is the 
^^f" recognized symbol of intelligence, equality, free- 
■f^ ' dom and Christian civilization. Wherever it goes, 
^ the immense power of this Republic goes with it, and 
the hand that touches the honor of the flag touches the 
honor of the Republic itself. On Spanish soil, a m_an enti- 




OUR COUNTRY. 337 

tied to the protection of our government was arrested and 
condemned to die. The American consul interceded for his 
life, but was told that the man must suffer death. The hour 
appointed for the execution came, and Spanish guns, gleam- 
ing in the sunlight, were ready for the work of death. At 
that critical moment the American consul took our flag and 
folded its stars and stripes around the person of the doomed 
man, and then turning to the soldiers, said, " Men, remem- 
ber that a single shot through that flag will be avenged by 
the entire power of the American Republic." That shot was 
never fired, and that man, around whom the shadows of 
death were gathering, was saved by the stars and the stripes. 
Dear old flag ! Thou art a power at home. and abroad. Our 
fathers loved thee in thine infancy, our heroic dead loved 
thee, and we love thee, and fondly clasp thee to our hearts 
to-day. All thy stars gleam like gems of beauty on thy 
brow, and all thy stripes beam upon the eye like bows of 
promise to the nation. 

Wave on, thou peerless, matchless, banner of the free ! 
Wave on, over the army and the navy, over the land and 
the sea, over the cottage and the palace, over the school and 
the church, over the living and the dead ; wave ever more 

*^ O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave." 

— Rev. H. H, Birkins. 



People of the United States, humanity expects that your 
glorious Republic will prove to the world that republics are 
formed on virtue. It expects to see you the guardians of 
the law of humanity. — Louis Kossuth 



^ss 



OUR COUNTRY, 



THE STAR-SPANQLED BANNER. 

^^r)^^^!! say, can you see, by the dawn's early light, 

fflf^^rt What so proudly we hailed at the twilidit's last 

^ W"? 1 • o 

1^) fif-.. gleaming ; 

Whose broad stripes and bright stars througli the peril- 
ous fight 
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly 
streaming ; 
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, 
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there ; 
Oh ! say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave 
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave ? 




On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep, 
W^here the foe's haughty host in dread silence rei)oses, 

W^hat is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep, 
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses? 

Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam, 

In full glory reflected now shines on the stream; 

^Tis the star-spangled banner ! oh ! long may it wave 
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave ! 



And where is that band, who so vauntingly swore 
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion 

A home and a country should leave us no more? 

Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution. 

No refuge could save the hireling and slave. 

From the terror of death and the gloom of the grave; 
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall w^ave 
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave ! 

Oh ! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand 

Between their loved homes and the war's desolation ; 



OUR COUNTRY. 339 

Blest with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land 
Praise the power that has made and preserved us a nation. 

Then conquer we must, for our cause it is just, 

And this be our motto, " In God is our trust," 

And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave 
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave ! 

— Francis Scott Key, 

THE UTOPIA OF CHRISTIANITY. 

I 

T was the fashion fifty years ago to speak of this 
Constitution as ahnost a miracle of human wis- 
dom. Of late there seems to be a disposition to 
regard it a very commonplace affair. The esti- 
mate of fifty years ago is much more nearly correct. 
It was a miracle not only of human wisdom but of Di- 
vine teaching. It was the fruit of centuries of the 
teaching and training of mankind. It was the product of 
no one mind or class of minds. It was the result of provi- 
dential circumstances, quite as much as of human thought. 
It was the work of many centuries and of many men. It 
was the work of God as well as of men. It was the practi- 
cal embodiment of the great law of love, in the civil state. 
It was by far the best translation the world had ever seen, or 
has seen as yet, the great ideal of democracy — the Utopia of 
Christianity — into actual institutions and practicable gov- 
ernment. — Rev. John P. Oidliver, 



As once he sat over against the treasury, so now Christ 
sits over against the ballot box to see what his disciples cast 
therein." — Mary Allen West. 




390 



OUR COUNTRY, 




OUR CONSTITUTION W^ITHOUT 
PARALLEL. 

HE Constitution of the United States, a document 
of rare, in many respe'cts matchless excellence, 
prior to its modification by the Thirteenth, Four- 
teenth and Fifteenth Amendments, is now cer- 
tainly without parallel in the history of mankind, as 
an enunciation of organic law ; and every American, 
whatever his political bias or party affiliations, must ex- 
perience special pleasure in knowing thfit no other nation of 
ancient or modern times has been given the genius or the 
heart to produce such a document, and to establish in ac- 
cordance therewith a government which in its forms and re- 
sults realizes so nearly our idea of that perfect government, 
the subjects of which, while they enjoy the amplest possible 
freedom^ j)ursue their several occupations, assured of the 
largest protection to life, liberty and property.— Pro/. John 
Mercer Langston, 



ORIGIN OF OUR CONSTITUTION. 

'HATEVER we may think of it now, the Consti- 
tution had its immediate origin in the conviction 
^^fgf(^ of the necessity of this uniformity or identity, 
I v^^::^^ in commercial regulations. 

The whole history of the country, of every year 
and every month, from the close of the war of the revo- 
lution to 1789, proves this. Over whatever other inter- 
ests it was made to extend, and whatever other blessings it 




OUR COUNTRY. 391 

now does or hereafter may confer on the millions of free 
citizens who do or shall live under its protection ; even 
though, in time to come, it should raise a pyramid of power 
and grandeur, whose apex should look down on the loftiest 
political structures of other nations and other ages, it will 
yet be true that it was itself the child of pressing commer- 
cial necessity; Unity and identity of commerce among all 
the States was its seminal principle. It had been found ab- 
solutely impossible to excite or foster enterprise in trade 
under the influence of discordant and jarring State regula- 
tions. The country was losing all the advantages of its po- 
sition. The revolution itself was beginning to be regarded 
as a doubtful blessing. The ocean before us was a barren 
waste. No American canvas whitened its bosom — no keels 
of ours ploughed its waters. The journals of the Congress 
of the Confederation show the most constant, unceasing, un- 
w^earied, but always unsuccessful appeals to the States and 
the people to renovate the system, to infuse into that con- 
federation at once a spirit of union and a spirit of activity, 
by conferring on Congress the power over trade. By nothing 
but the perception of its indispensable necessity — by nothing 
but their consciousness of suffering from its want, were the 
States and the people brought, and brought by slow degrees, 
to invest this power in a permanent and competent govern- 
ment. 

Sir, hearken to the fervent language of the old Congress, 
in July, 1785, in, a letter addressed to the States, prepared 
by Mr. Monroe, Mr. King, and other great names now trans- 
ferred from the lists of living men to the records which carry 
down the fame of the distinguished dead. The proposition 
before them, the great object to which they so solicitously en- 
deavored to draw the attention of the States, was this, viz. : 



392 ^^^ COUNTRY. 

that, " the United States, in Congress assembled, should have 
the sole and exclusive right of regulating the trade of the 
States, as well with foreign nations as with each other." 
This, they say, is urged upon the States by every considera- 
tion of local as w^ell as of federal policy ; and they beseech 
them to agree to it if they wish to promote the strength of 
the union, and to connect it by the strongest ties of interest 
and affection. This was in July, 1785. 

In the same spirit, and for the same end, was that most 
important resolution which was adopted in the House of 
Delegates of Virginia, on the 21st day of the following Jan- 
uary. Sir, I read the resolution entire : 

''Resolved, That Edmund Randolph and others be ap- 
pointed commissioners, who, or any five of whom, shall meet 
such commissioners as may be appointed by the other States 
in the Union, at a time and place to be agreed on, to take 
into consideration the trade of the United States ; to exam- 
ine the relative situations and trade of the said States ; to 
consider how far a uniform system in their commercial regu- 
lations may be necessary to their common interest and their 
permanent harmony, and to report to the several States such 
an act relative to this great object, as, when unanimously 
ratified by them, will enable the United States, in Congress 
assembled, effectually to provide for the same ; that the said 
commissioners shall immediately transmit to the several 
States copies of the preceding resolution, with a circular let- 
ter requesting their concurrence therein, and proposing a 
time and place for the meeting aforesaid." 

Here, sir, let us pause. Let us linger at the waters of this 
original fountain. Let us contemplate this, the first step, in 
that series of proceedings, so full of great events to us and 
to the world. Notwithstanding the embarrassment and dis- 



OUR COUNTRY. 393 

tress of the country, the recommendation of the old Con- 
gress had been complied \Yith. Every attempt to bring the 
State legislatures into any harmony of action, or any pursuit 
of a common object, had signally and disastrously failed. 
The exigency of the case called for a new movement — for a 
more direct and powerful attempt to bring the good sense 
and patriotism of the country into action upon the crisis. A 
solemn assembly was therefore proposed — a general conven- 
tion of delegates from all the States. And now, sir, what 
was the exigency ? What was this crisis ? Look at the 
resolution itself; there is not an idea in it but trade. Com- 
merce ! commerce! is the beginning and end of it. The 
subject to be considered and examined was '^ the relative 
situation of the trade of the States," and the object to be 
obtained was " the establishment of a uniform system in 
their commercial regulations, as necessary to the common 
interest and their permanent harmony." This is all. And, 
sir, by the adoption of this ever-memorable resolution, the 
House of Delegates of Virginia, on the 21st day of January, 
1786, performed the first act in the train of measures which 
resulted in that Constitution, under the authority of which 
you now sit in that chair, and I have now the honor of ad- 
dressing the members of this body. 

Mr. President, I am a Northern man. I am attached to 
one of the States of the North, by the ties of birth and par- 
entage, education, and the associations of early life, and by 
sincere gratitude for proofs of public confidence early be- 
stowed. I am bound to another Northern State by adoption, 
by long residence, by all the cords of social and domestic 
life, and by an attachment and regard springing from her 
manifestation of approbation and favor, which grapple me 
to her with hooks of steel. And yet, sir, with the same 



394 C>?7i? COUNTRY. 

sincerity of respect, the same deep gratitude, the same rev- 
erence and hearty good-will with which I would pay a simi- 
lar tribute to either of these States, do I here acknowledge 
the Commonwealth of Virginia to be entitled to the honor 
of commencing the work of establishing this Constitution. 
The honor is hers; let her enjoy it; let her forever wear 
it proudly ; there is not a brighter jewel in the tiara that 
adorns her brow. Let this resolution stand, illustrating her 
records, and blazoning her name through all time ! 

The meeting, sir, proposed by the resolution w^as holden. 
It took place, as all know, in Annapolis, in May of the same 
year; but it was thinly attended, and its members, very 
wisely, adopted measures to bring about a fuller and more 
general convention. Their letter to the States on. this occa- 
sion is full of instruction. It shows their sense of the unfor- 
tunate condition of the country. In their meditations on 
the subject, they saw the extent to which the commercial 
power must necessarily extend. The sagacityof New Jersey 
had led her, in agreeing to the original proposition of Vir- 
ginia, to enlarge the object of the appointment of commis- 
sioners, so as to embrace not only commercial regulations 
hut other important matters. This suggestion the commis- 
sioners adopted because they thought, as they inform us, 
^^ that the power of regulating trade is of such comprehen- 
sive extent, and will enter so far into the general system of 
the Federal government, so that to give it efficacy and to 
obviate questions and doubts concerning its precise nature 
and limits, might require a correspondent adjustment of 
other parts of the Federal system." Here you see, sir, that 
other powers, such as are now in the Constitution, were ex- 
pected to branch out of the necessary commercial power; 
and, therefore, the letter of the commissioners concludes with 



OUR COUNTRY. 395 

recommending a general convention " to take into considera- 
tion the whole situation of the United States, and to devise 
further provisions as should appear necessary to render the 
Constitution of the Federal government adequate to the 
exigencies of the Union." 

The result of that convention was the present Constitu- 
tion. And yet, in the midst of all this flood of light re- 
specting its original objects and purposes, and v^^itli all the 
ade(Juate powers which it confers, we abandon the commerce 
of the country, we betray its interests, we turn ourselves 
away from its most crying necessities. Sirs, it will be a fact, 
stamped in deep and dark lines upon our annals ; it will be 
a truth, which in all time can never be denied or evaded, 
that if this Constitution shall not, now and hereafter, be so 
administered as to maintain a uniform system in all matters 
of trade ; if it shall not protect and regulate the commerce 
of the country, in all its great interest, in its foreign inter- 
course, in its domestic intercourse, in its navigation, in its 
currency, in everything which fairly belongs to the whole 
idea of commerce, either as an end, an agent, or an instru- 
ment, then that Constitution will have failed, utterly failed 
to accomplish the precise, distinct, original object, in which 
it had its being. 

In matters of trade we were no longer to be Georgians, 
Virginians, Pennsylvanians, or Massachusetts men. We 
were to have but one commerce of the United States. There 
were not to be separate flags, waving over separate com- 
mercial systems. There was to be one flag, the E Plurihus 
TJiium ; and toward that was to be that rally of united in- 
terests and affections, v/hich our fathers had so earnestly 
invoked. 

Mr. President, this unity of commercial regulation is, in 



396 OUR COUNTRY, 

in my opinion, indispensable to the safety of the union of 
the States themselves. In peace, it is its strongest tie. I 
care not, sir, on what side, or in which of its branches, it 
may be attacked. Every successful attack upon it, made 
anywhere, weakens the whole, and renders the next assault 
easier and more dangerous. Any denial of its just power is 
an attack upon it. We attack it, most fiercely attack it, 
whenever we say w^e w^ill not exercise the powers which it 
enjoins. If the court had yielded to the pretensions of re- 
spectable States upon the subject of steam navigation, and 
to the retaliatory proceedings of other States ; if retreat and 
excuse, and disavowal of power had been prevailing senti- 
ments then, in what condition at this moment, let me ask, 
would the steam navigation of the country be found ? To 
us, sir, to us, his countrymen, to us, who feel so much ad- 
miration for his genius, and so much gratitude for his ser- 
vices, Fulton would have lived almost in vain. State grants 
and State exclusions would have covered over all our waters. 

Sir, it is in the nature of such thin2;s, that the first viola- 
tion, or the first departure from true principles, draws more 
important violations or departures after it; and the first 
surrender of just authority will be followed by others more 
to be deplored. If commerce be a unit, to break it in any 
one part is to decree its ultimate dismemberment in all. If 
there be made a first chasm, though it be small, through 
that the whole wild ocean will pour in, and we may then 
throw up embankments in vain. 

Sir, the spirit of union is particularly liable to temptation 
and seduction, in moments of peace and prosperity. In 
war, this spirit is strengthened by a sense of common danger, 
and by a thousand recollections of ancient efforts and ancient 
glory in a common cause. In the calms of a long peace, and 



OUR COUNTRY. 397 

in the absence of all apparent causes of alarm, things near 
gain an ascendency over things remote. Local interests 
and feelings overshadow national sentiments. Our attention, 
our regard, and our attachment are every moment solicited 
to what touches us closest, and we feel less and less the at- 
traction of a distant orb. Such tendencies we are bound by 
true patriotism, "and by our love of union, to resist. This is 
our duty ; and the moment, in my judgment, has arrived 
when that duty is summoned to action. We hear everyday 
sentiments and arguments which would become a meeting 
of envoys, employed by separate governments, more than 
they become the common legislature of a united country. 
Constant appeals are made to local interests, to geographical 
distinctions, and to the policy and the pride of particular 
States. It would sometimes appear that it was, or as if it 
were, a settled purpose to convince the people that our union 
is nothing but a jumble of different and discordant interests, 
w^iich must, ere long, be all returned to their original state 
of separate existence ; as if, therefore, it was of no great 
value w^hile it should last, and v/as not likely to last long. 
The process of disintegration begins by urging the fact of 
different interests. 

• Sir, is not the end obvious, to which all this leads us ? 
Who does not see that, if convictions of tliis kind take pos- 
session of the public mind, our Union can hereaftar be noth- 
ing, while it remains but a conclusion w^ithout harmony ; a 
bond without affection ; a theatre for the angry contests of 
local feelings, local objects, and local jealousies ? Even 
while it continues to exist in name, it may, by these means, 
become nothing but the mere form of a united government. 
My children, and the children of those who sit around me, 
may meet, perhaps, in this chamber in the next generation ; 



398 OUR COUNTRY, 

but if tendencies, now but too obvious, be not checked, tbey 
will meet as strangers and aliens. They will feel no sense 
of common interest or common country :» they will cherish 
no common object of patriotic love. If the same Saxon 
language shall fall from their lips, it may be the chief proof 
that they belong to the same nation. Its vital principle ex- 
hausted, now productive only of strife and contention, and 
no longer sustained by a sense of common interest, the Union 
itself must ultimately fall, dishonored and unlamented. — 
Daniel Webster. 



THE CONSTITUTION. 

^^^^^(^REAT were the hearts, and strong the minds 



j!fe^ Of those who framed, in high debate, 
"^^^^ The immortal league of love, that binds 
^'^ Our fair broad Empire, State with State. 

And deep the gladness of the hour, 
When, as the auspicious task was done, 

In solemn trust, the sword of power, 
Was given to glory's unspoiled son. 

That noble race is gone ; the suns 

Of sixty years have risen and set ; 
But tlie bright links, those chosen ones 

So strongly forged, are brighter yet. 

Wide, as our own free race increase — 

Wide shall extend the elastic chain, 
And bind in everlasting peace, 

State after State — a mighty train. 

— W,G. Bryant 



OUR COUNTRY, 399 



THE POSITION OF OUR FLAG. 

'^^^E will take our glorious flag — the flag of our country 

)£r — and nail it just below the cross! This is high 

enough ! There let it wave as it waved of old ! 

Around it let us gather. First Christ, and then our country. 

— Bishop Simpson, 

AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP. 

MERICAN citizenship is of more noble birth than 
either Greek or Roman, or modern European. 
It is the offspring of absolute freedom, political 
and religious, which guarantees to nations the high- 
est development, socially, morally and intellectually. 
That freedom is founded upon the great truth that " all 
men are created equal." It is no respecter of persons, sex 
or condition. It is the outgrowth of a principle of action 
lying deep in every human breast, formulated by the words 
— " The right of private judgment." 

All through the ages — Pagan, Jew and Christian — this 
principle had been suppressed by autocrats, by governments, 
by religions, by persecutions. It was so completely smoth- 
ered by the Church at the beginning of the sixteenth century, 
that enlightened reason could no longer endure the thral- 
dom ; and at the diet of Spires three hundred and fifty 
years ago, Luther and his associates publicly protested 
against the repression, and boldly proclaimed the great prin- 
ciple of free agency, upon which the reformation rests — the 
right of private judgment in matters of religion. 




Y 



400 OUE COUJSTRY. 

This proclamation was an electric spark wliicli thrilled 
the intellect of the Western nations of Europe. Thoughtful 
men everywhere inquired : " If there shall be freedom in the 
Church, why not in the state ? Has a king at the head of 
the state a better right to mould my thoughts or control my 
actions, than a pontiff, at the head of a church ? " 

" If I'm yon haughty lordling's slave 
By I^ature's law designed, 
Why was an independent wish 

E'er planted in my mind ? '' ' 

This thought was the seed of republicanism, planted in 
generous soil. It widely germinated in France, Italy, Ger- 
many and England ; and it soon blossomed and bore fruit in 
Holland. In England it assumed the aspect of non-con- 
formity to the discipline of the Church, and for more than 
half a century the recusants felt the scourge of persecution. 
Finally, the sufferers fled to the wilds of America, where the 
grand ideas of religious and political liberty might crystal- 
lize into a commonwealth of free men. 

Zealous sectarians in theology, the Puritans in America so 
hedged the idea of personal independence, that for more 
than a century its expansion seemed almost hopeless. Then 
the walls of bigotry began to crumble, and soon afterward 
there was fixed upon American soil, the language, the man- 
ners, the ideas, the religion and the institutions which char- 
acterized our nation in its infancy. Crude at first was the 
structure formed of these materials; but they were sound 
and strong, and the architecture was symmetrical in pro- 
portion. 

The emigrants, especially those of Germanic lineage, 
cherished in their minds traditions of local self-<]:overnment 



OUR COUNTRY. 401 

before the crown and the mitre usurped the inalienable 
rights of man. One principle pervaded the primeval polity 
of the Goths, namely, " Where the law was administered 
the law was made." This policy had prevailed in ancient 
England, manifested by the territorial divisions of tythings, 
hundreds, boroughs, counties, and shires, in which the body 
of the inhabitants had a voice in managing their own affairs. 
These traditions lingered in the minds of the emigrants, and 
suggested independence controlled by order. 

When im.patient " strangers " — not Pilgrims proper— on 
board the ^'Mayflower" declared that as their charter did 
not apply to New England, there would be no authority to 
exercise the powers of government over them, and that when 
they got on shore they would do as they pleased, Brewster 
and Bradford and Clark and young Wirislow and others de- 
termined to effectually repress this riotous spirit. They 
drew up a covenant which was signed by nearly every man 
of the little company before they landed — forty-one in num- 
ber — solemnly combining themselves into a civil body poli- 
tic. This was the first written constitution of government 
ever signed by a whole people. It was a pure democracy. 
It was the germ of American citizenship. 

In time a grander idea was developed : that of a republi- 
can government of all the municipalities as one — E PJarihus 
JJnum — upon the principle of the sovereignty of the people. 
Mutual protection against the forest barbarians called for 
combined action, and the New England Confederacy was 
formed in the seventeenth century, which lasted forty years. 
That was the germ of the American Republic. 

At length mutual protection against the oppression of the 
imperial government called for combined action, and on the 
2d of July, 1776, the assembled representatives of thirteen 

26 



402 OUR COUNTRY. 

English- American provinces ''Resolved^ That these united 
colonies are, and of right ought to be^ free and indepen-dent 
States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the 
British crown, and that all political connection between 
them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, 
totally dissolved." The colonies assumed the title of " United 
States of America." That was the birthday of the Republic. 

In the summer and early autumn of 1787 a body of funda- 
mental laws of the land was framed by representatives of 
the States, and ninety-two years ago this week it was signed 
by them. That Constitution was ratified by the people the 
next year. 

Then our nation was formed, vigorous and powerful ; then 
American citizenship assumed an importance never before 
known. Every citizen — which term included every person 
not of Indian or African blood — became a co-equal in the 
State. This, in brief, is the genesis of this glorious free gov- 
ernment of which we are citizens. — Benson J.Lossing, LL. D. 



THE DUTY OF AMERICAN CITIZENS. 

ND now, fellow-citizens, let us not retire from this 
occasion without a deep and solemn conviction 
of the duties which have devolved 'upon us. 
This lovely land, this glorious liberty, these be- 
nign institutions, the dear purchase of our fathers^ 
are ours ; ours to enjoy, ours to preserve, ours to trans- 
mit. Generations past, and generations to come, hold 
us responsible for the sacred trust. Our fathers, from be- 
hind, admonish us, with their anxious paternal voices — pos- 
terity calls out to us, from the bosom of the future — the 




OUR COUNTRY. 403 

world turns hither its solicitous eye — all^ all, conjure us to 
act wisely and faithfully, in the relation which we sustain. 
We can never, indeed, pay the debt which is upon us; but 
by virtue, by morality, by religion, by the cultivation of 
every good principle and every good habit, we may hope to 
enjoy the blessing, through our day, and leave it unimpaired 
to our children. Let us feel deeply how much, of what we 
are and of what we possess, we owe to this liberty and these 
institutions of government. Nature has, indeed, given us a 
soil, which yields bounteously to the hand of industry ; the 
mighty and fruitful ocean is before us, and the skies over our 
heads shed health and vigor. But what are lands, and seas, 
and skies to civilized man without society, without knowledge, 
without morals, without religious culture ; and how can 
these be enjoyed, in all their extent, and all their excellence, 
but under the protection of wise institutions and a free gov- 
ernment? Fellow-citizens, there is not one of us, there is 
not one of us here present, who does not, at this moment, 
and at every moment, experience, in his own condition, and 
in the condition of those most near and dear to him, the in- 
fluence and the benefits of this liberty and these institutions. 
Let us then acknowledge the blessing, let us feel it deeply 
and powerfully, let us cherish a strong affection for it, and 
resolve to maintain and perpetuate it. The blood of our 
fathers, let it not have been shed in vain ; the great hope of 
posterity, let it not be blasted. — Daniel Wehster. 



What the ark was to Israel the ballot should be to the 
American people, and their love of liberty should act like a 
divine presence to palsy the hand that profanes it. 

— Rev. R. A. Holland, 




404 OUR COUNTRY. 



DUTY TO THE STATE. 

UR country is a whole, my Publius, 
Of which w^e all are parts : nor should a citizen 
Regard his interest as distinct from hers : 
No hopes or fears should touch his patriot soul, 
But what affects her honor or her shame. 
E'en when in hostile field he bleeds to save, 
'Tis not his blood he loses, 'tis his country's ; 
He only pays her back a debt he owes. 
To her he's bound for birth and education ; 
Her laws secure him from domestic feuds. 
And from the foreign foe her arms protect him. 
She lends him honors, dignity, and rank. 
His wrongs revenges, and his merit pays; 
And, like a tender and indulgent mother, 
Loads him with comforts, and would make his state 
As blessed as nature and the gods designed it. 
Such gifts, my son, have their alloy of pain,- 
And let the unworthy wretch, who will not bear 
His portion of the public burden, lose 
The advantages it yields ; let him retire 
From the dear blessings of a social life, 
And from the sacred laws which guard those blessings. 
Renounce the civilized abodes of man, 
With kindred brutes one common shelter seek 
In horrid wilds, and dens, and dreary caves. 
And with their shaggy tenants share the spoil ; 
Or, if the shaggy hunters miss their prey. 
From scattered acorns pick a scanty meal ; 
Far from the sweet civilities of life. 
There let him live and vaunt his wretched freedom. 
While we, obedient to the laws that guard us, 
Guard them, and live or die, as they decree. 

— Hannah More. 




OUR COUNTRY. 405 



THE BALLOT-BOX. 

AM aware that the ballot-box is not everywhere 
p3)(^ a consistent symbol ; but to a large degree it is 
- ^ s^- ^ know what miserable associations cluster 
^^^Q around this instrument of popular power. I 
^^^^-^ know that the arena in which it stands is trodden 
(^ into mire by the feet of reckless ambition and 
1 selfish greed. The wire-pulling and the bribing, the 
pitiful truckling and the grotesque compromises, the exag- 
geration and the detraction, the melodramatic issues and 
the sham patriotism, the party watchwords and the party 
nicknames, the schemes of the few paraded as the will of 
the many, the elevation of men whose only worth is in the 
votes they command — vile men whose hands you would not 
grasp in friendship, whose presence you would not tolerate 
b}^ your fireside — incompetent men, whose fitness is not in 
their capacity as functionaries, or legislators, but as organ- 
pipes ; the snatching at the slices and offiil of office, the in- 
temperance and the violence, the finesse and the falsehood, 
the gin and the glory ; these are indeed but too closely identi- 
fied with that political agitation which circles around the 
ballot-box. 

But, after all, they are not essential to it. They are only 
the masks of a genuine grandeur and importance. For 
it is a grand thing — something which involves profound doc- 
trines of right ; something which has cost ages of effort and 
sacrifice; it is a grand thing that here, at last, each voter 
has just the weight of one man ; no more, no less ; and the 
weakest, by virtue of his recognized manhood, is as strong as 



406 OUR COUNTEY. 

the mightiest. And consider/ for a moment, what it is to 
cast a vote. It is the token of inestimable privileges, and 
involves the responsibilities of an hereditary trust. It has 
passed into your hands as a right, reaped from fields of suf- 
fering and blood. The grandeur of history is represented in 
your act. Men have wrought with pen and tongue, and pined 
in dungeons, and died on scaffolds that you might obtain this 
symbol of freedom, and enjoy this consciousness of a sacred 
individuality. To the ballot have been transmitted, as it 
were, the dignity of the sceptre and the potency of the 
sword. 

And that which is so potent as a right is also pregnant as 
a duty ; a duty for the present and for the future. If you 
will, that folded leaf becomes a tongue of justice, a voice of 
order, a force of imperial law ; securing rights, abolishing 
abuses, erecting new institutions of truth and love. And, 
however you w^ill, it is the expression of a solemn responsi- 
bility, the exercise of an immeasurable power for good or for 
evil, now and hereafter. It is the medium through which 
you act upon your country — the organic nerve which incor- 
porates you with its life and welfare. There is no agent 
with which the possibilities of the republic are more inti- 
mately involved, none upon w4iich we can fall back with 
more confidence than the ballot-box. — E. H. Ghapin. 



God sifted a whole nation that he might send choice 
grain over into this wilderness. — StougJiton, 



A FREE ballot is the safeguard of republican institutions. 

— James G. Blaine, 




^ry 



OUR COUNTRY. 407 



THE POOR VOTER ON ELECTION 

DAY. 



HE proudest now is but my peer, 

The highest not more high ; 
To-day, of all the weary year, 

A king of men am I. 
To-day alike are great and small, 

The nameless and the known ; 
My palace is the people's hall, 

The ballot-box my throne. 

Who serves to-day upon the list 

Besides the served shall stand ; 
Alike the brov/n and wrinkled fist. 

The gloved and dainty hand. 
The rich is level with the poor, 

The weak is strong to-day ; 
And sleekest broadcloth counts no more 

Than hojnespun frock of gray. 

To-day let pomp and vain pretence 

My stubborn right abide ; 
I set a plain man's common sense 

Against the pedant's pride. 
To-day shall simple manhood try 

The strength of gold and land ; 
The wide world has not wealth to buy 

The power in my right hand. 

While there's a grief to seek redress, 
Or balance to adjust, — 



408 ^^^ COUNTRY. 



Where weighs our living manhood less 

Than Mammon's vilest dust, — 
While there's a right to need my vote, 

A wrong to sweep away, 
Up ! clouted knee and ragged coat, 

A man's a man to-day. 

— John G. Whit tie?' 



CHANGES OF A CENTURY. 

y^^^2^ HAT mighty changes have these one hundred 
i^W^WM y^^^s witnessed ! The seed of liberty sown by 
^n^^rt§ ^^^ fathers has germinated and flourished even in 
^A§^^ the monarchies of Europe. Napoleon made all 
*]|^P^ tremble with his hostile legions. Forty centuries 
\^ looked down on his conquering armies from the pyra- 
» mids of Egypt. France, the scene of so many revolu- 
tions, has become enrolled in the list of republics. Other 
nations, catching the shouts of freemen, have compelled the 
looseniYig of the reins of power. Thrones that have stood 
firmly for ages have been made to tremble upon their 
foundations. Austria, the land of tyranny and oppression, 
has compelled her emperor to abdicate. The Pope, whose 
election was hailed by the whole civilized world as the har- 
binger of a better administration, was hardly seated upon 
the throne before he fled in disguise from his pontifical halls, 
and St. Peter and the Vatican resounded with the triumphal 
shouts of an awakened nation. Hungary struggled for 
independence as a nation, and practically achieved it, so that 
to-day it lives under laws enacted by its own parliament, 
and accepts the emperor of Austria as king. Russia has 
emancipated her serfs and taken vast strides in her progress 



OUR COUNTRY, , 409 

as a nation. China is no longer a walled nation, shut up 
from the rest of the world ; with Japan she has opened her 
gates to the commerce of the world, and civilization has 
begun to loosen the scales from the eyes of hundreds of mil- 
lions of people in these two nations, whose origin, ae well as 
their knowledge in the arts and sciences, is lost in the dim 
ages of antiquity. 

On the Western Continent we have in the war of 1812-15 
asserted our right against England to travel the highways of 
the seas unmolested. The Saxons have conquered and dis- 
membered Mexico. The most gigantic rebellion the world 
ever saw has been suppressed, and with it fell the institution 
of slavery. That foul blot upon the otherwise fair face of 
our constitution, less than a score of years ago, seemed 
firmly and irreversibly fastened upon the body politic. So 
steadily was it entrenched behind constitutional guarantees 
that there seemed no way by which it could be cui'fed -, and 
hence it was endured. But God in his mysterious provi- 
dence permitted those whose rights were thus protected by 
constitutional guarantees to make war upon the government 
which protected them, and in the fratricidal struggle the 
shackles fell from the limbs of every slave. To-day the sun 
does not shine in all this mighty republic upon a single bond- 
man. The same constitution and the same laws alike 
declare the equality of all men before the law without 
reference to previous condition of servitude, race or color. 

In the physical world the progress in the arts and 
sciences has surpassed any conception which we were able 
to form. California outshines the wealth of India. We 
traverse the ocean in ships propelled by steam. The vast 
expanse of our land is covered by a net-work of iron rails 
reaching out in every direction. The hourly rate of speed 



410 . OUR COUNTRY. 

has increased from five miles to thirty, and even to sixty. 
The world has been girdled with the electric wire. It 
reposes in safety on the bed of the great deep. On the 
wings of the lightning it conveys from land to land and 
shore to shore every moment the intelligence of man's 
thoughts and man's actions. Each new year has opened up 
some new improvement or discovery in the world of inven- 
tions, which fails me even to enumerate. And who shall say 
that a century hence the historian of that day will not be 
called upon to record the further discovery of wonders far 
surpassing any conception which we are able to form ! 

— JiidcjG Isaac W, Smith, 



A CENTURY'S PROGRESS. 

^j^^^W<N American statesman travelling in Europe met a 
large company of distinguished Englishmen at a 
dinner party. '* How many States are there in 
the Union ?" one inquired of him across the table. 
The guests listened for his answer. "With perfect 
calmness he replied^ " I do not know." There was a 
moment of silence in contemplating such inexplicable 
ignorance. After the pause of a moment, which gave 
dramatic effect, to his words, he added, " I have been absent 
for six months in a tour up the Nile. When I left home 
there were thirty-four States in the Union. How many 
have since been added I cannot tell." It is safe to say that 
not one-half w^ho read this page can state with confidence 
how many stars there are now in our political constellation. 
It is like remembering the number of asteroids in the solar 
system. 



OUR COUNTRY. 4^1 

When this government was established there were thirteen 
States ', now we number, I think, thirty-eight States and ten 
Territories. Then our territory comprehended 820,680 
square miles. Now there are embraced within our majestic 
realms 3,559,091 square miles — a fourfold increase. 

The single State of Texas is larger than the whole empire 
of France. Mr. Emerson says that we could sink several of 
the monarchies of Europe in one of our lakes, and scarcely 
impede the navigation. A sturdy, wealthy backwoodsman, 
whose home was amid the boundless prairies of the far 
West, and who had returned from a tour of Europe, chanced 
to meet Thackeray, who was on a hunting trip upon the 
plains. To the inquiry of the illustrious novelist of how he 
liked England, the tourist replied : " Yery well in the day- 
time, but I never dared to go out after dark from fear that I 
should step oft" 

The whole of our motherly little island, from whose arms 
we so rudely rushed one hundred years ago, could be laid 
down upon the State of Texas, leaving a border all around 
sixty miles broad. 

We were, less than a hundred years ago, quite insignifi- 
cant. Our pride was often mortified by questions put to us 
in Europe. The Pope, a third of a century ago, inquired of 
a distinguished New York clergyman, *^ What proportion 
of the inhabitants of the city of New York are native 
Indians?" A professor at Oxford, England, inquired of 
an American literary gentleman who had borne letters of 
introduction to him, '^ Can the Rocky Mountains be seen 
from the steeples of New York?" Twenty-five years ago 
the writer met a gentleman in one of the most aristocratic 
mansions of England. In the course of conversation the 
fact was alluded to that he was from America; the portly 



412 X OUR COUNTRY. 

Englishman raised both hands in astonishment, exclaiming : 
" From Hameriky ! from Hameriky ! God bless my soul ! 
why you speak very good English ! " 

The first census was taken in the year 1790. The 
population then numbered 3,929,328. Of these 697,696 
were slaves. The last census announces the population to 
have been then, six years ago, 38,580,371. Not a slave 
now treads our soil. 

It has long been said that our government was but an 
experiment which would infallibly fail. It has emerged 
triumphantly from as severe an ordeal as any nation can be 
exposed to. It is now the strongest nation on this globe. 
There is not a throne in Europe which is not to-day menaced 
with perils far greater than any which we have to contem- 
plate. 

One hundred years ago Maine was an almost unbroken 
solitude. A few log-huts were scattered here and there 
along its rugged shores, and Indian tribes, silent, sullen and 
despairing, were passing away, amid her craggy coves and 
the glooms of her forests. 

Nearly the whole of the interior of New York was the 
hunting-ground of savage tribes, numerous and ferocious, 
often perpetrating deeds of cruelty too horrible to be nar- 
rated. Pittsburg was a military post far away bej'ond the 
mountains. The morning sun, rising over the AUeghenies, 
spread its rays over the boundless and uninhabited realms 
beyond. But scarcely one ray of civilization had yet pene- 
trated those glooms where States of imperial grandeur are 
now thriving. The largest part of Virginia was a dense 
forest, which the white man's foot had never yet explored. 
It required the toilsome journey of a fortnight to traverse 
the distance between Baltimore and Pittsburg. 



OUR COUNTRY. 4I3 

Even the imagination of men had hardly travelled so far 
as to the regions beyond the Mississippi. Even as late as 
1803 it was written : " The Missouri has been navigated 
for twenty-five hundred miles. There appears a probability 
of communication^ by this channel, with the Western 
Ocean." 

In November, 1776, according to the general statement, 
the illustrious Paul Jones, whose merit and achievements 
have never been adequately appreciated, raised our first 
naval flag, under a salute of thirteen guns. It consisted of 
thirteen stripes and of a rattlesnake coiled at the roots of a 
pine tree, with the motto in Latin, " Do not tread upon me." 
The naval fleet of the United States then consisted of but 
five small vessels. With this armament Paul Jones set sail 
to encounter the squadrons of England, then consisting of a 
thousand vessels, bearing armaments of many thousand 
guns. 

France, in 1778, was the first nation which recognized the 
independence of the United States. Our beautiful banner 
of stars and stripes, a flag in whose folds are enshrined the 
dearest rights of humanity, was first honored by a national 
salute by a French fleet in Quiberon bay. It was on the 
22d of February, 1778, that the heroic Paul Jones brought 
about this result. 

In the year 1807 Fulton astonished the dwellers on the 
banks af the Hudson by driving his newly constructed steam- 
boat, commonly called " Fulton's Folly," against the current 
at the rate of four or five miles an hour. This strange-look- 
ing craft was of one hundred and sixty tons burden. After 
a long voyage he succeeded in reaching Albany ; but it was 
confidently asserted that he could never accomplish the feat 



again. 



414 OUR COUNTRY. 

We need not here enter upon the vexed question of the 
origin of steamboats. In the childhood of the writer they 
were unknown. Somewhere about the year 1820, Captain 
Porter commenced running a little bug of a steamboat from 
Portland to Boston. As I remember the voyage occupied 
about twenty-four hours. Six passengers were considered a 
success. Probably some of the ancient men of Portland can 
give more accurate and interesting details. 

In 1811 the steamboat "Orleans" was launched at Pitts- 
burg, and descended to New Orleans in fourteen daj^s. This 
was the first steamer that ever floated upon the waters of 
the Mississippi. But who can now count our floating palaces ? 
Who can describe their palatial grandeur? Who can esti- 
mate the numbers who now, on the ocean and on the river, 
crowd their magnificent saloons? There is no other nation 
which can rival the United States in the number, grandeur 
and splendor of its steam-propelled marine. 

—John S. G. Abbott, 1876. 



INTELLECTUAL PROGRESS OF THE 
CENTURY. 

'HILE in material progress our country has, in the 
last century, surpassed all nations, we can also, 
with justice say, our people have advanced 
more rapidly in general intelligence than those 
of any other country. The high tone of the 
,i^^ masses may well be the honest boast of Americans. In 
' general diffusion of knowledge, in moral and social 
rectitude, in domestic purity and comfort, the common 




OUR COUNTRY. 415 

people of our country stand in the foremost rank. If much 
of this is due to the emigration from Europe of the better 
and not the worst classes of its laboring population, and to 
the facility with which in the United States comfortable 
homes may be had, much, too, is due to our admirable system 
of common schools, our large circulation of newspapers and 
periodical literature, and our widely diffused and liberal 
religious teaching. The general intelligence is likewise 
cultivated by our political institutions. Tlie public discus- 
sion on the hustings of political issues, the broad basis of 
suffrage, and the distribution to the very extremities of the 
nation of the powers of local government; and perhaps still 
more than all, the educating process of trial by jury, makes the 
government a popular school-master. All sexes and ages, 
through the workings of our system, are receiving instruction 
by the administration of the laws, and this is not the least of 
the merits of that administration. The citizen is not only 
made to feel that the government and the law are sacred, 
because created and administered by and for the people, but 
the sense of individual responsibility is cultivated and the 
range of popular thinking enlarged. So, too, the manifold 
forms and instruments of our industry promote popular cul- 
ture. The omnipresence of the railroad, telegraph, printing- 
press, steam-engine, agricultural and mechanical implements 
and the myriad magic fingers of machinery, teach the 
people practical knowledge, and excite that wonder and 
curiosity which lead to many an advance in physical science ; 
while fairs and expositions, social festivals, and public con- 
certs and amusements give aid to the hearthstone, the 
school-room and the church, in that general culture which 
is the surest basis of public virtue, and the indispensable 
bulwark of free government. — General Durhin Ward. 




416 OUR COUNTRY. 



THE EMBLEM OF OUR COUNTRY. 

'HIS distinguished bird, as he is the most beautiful 
of his tribe in this part of the world, and the 
adopted emblem of our country, is entitled to 
particular notice. The celebrated cataract of 
Niagara is a noted'place of resort for the bald eagle, 
as well on account of the fish procured there as for the 
numerous carcasses of squirrels, deer, bears, and various 
other animals that, in their attempts to cross the river above 
the falls, have been dragged into the current and precipitated 
down that tremendous gulf, where, among the rocks that 
bound the rapids below, they furnish a rich repast for the 
vulture, the raven, and the bald eagle, the subject of the 
present account. He has been long known to naturalists, 
being common to both continents, and occasionally met with 
from very high northern latitudes to the borders of the 
torrid zone, but chiefly in the vicinity of the sea, and along 
the shores and cliffs of our lakes and large rivers. Formed 
by nature for braving the severest cold, feeding equally on 
the produce of the sea and of the land, possessing powers of 
flight capable of outstripping even the tempests themselves, 
unawed by anything but man, and from the ethereal heights 
to which he soars looking abroad at one glance on an im- 
measurable expanse of forests, fields, lakes, and ocean deep 
below him, he appears indiflerent to the little localities of 
winter, from the lower to the higher regions of the atmos- 
phere, the abode of eternal cold, and from thence descends 
at will to the torrid or the arctic regions of the earth. He 
is, therefore, found at all seasons in the countries he inhabits, 




THE HISTORICAL WAR EAGLE, 

" Old Abe." 

after the battle. 



Used through the kindness of Theo. J. Harbach. 



OUR COUNTRY. 417 

but prefers such places as have been mentioned above, from 
the great partiality he has for fish. 

In procuring these, he displays in a very singular manner 
the genius and energy of his character, which is contempla- 
tive, daring, and tyrannical ; attributes not exerted but on 
particidar occasions, but, when put forth, overpowering all 
opposition. Elevated on the high, dead limb of some gigantic 
tree that commands a wide view of the neighboring shore 
and ocean, he seems calmly to contemplate the motions of 
the feathered tribes that pursue their busy avocations below ; 
the snow-white gulls slowly winnowing the air; the busy 
tringse coursing along the sands ; trains of ducks streaming 
over the surface; silent and watchful cranes, intent and 
wading ; clamorous crows ; and all the winged multitudes 
that subsist by the bounty of this vast liquid magazine of 
nature. High above these hovers one whose action instantly 
arrests his whole attention. By his wide curvature of wing, 
and sudden suspension in air, he knows him to be a fish- 
hawk, settling over some devoted victim of the deep. His 
eye kindles at the sight, and, balancing himself with half- 
opened wings on the branch, he watches the result. Down, 
rapid as an arrow from heaven, descends the distant object 
of his attention, the roar of its wings reaching the ear as it 
disappears in the deep, making the surges foam around ! At 
this moment the eager looks of the eagle are all ardor, and, 
levelling his neck for flight, he sees the fish-hawk once more 
emerge, struggling with his prey, and mounting into the air 
with screams of exultation. These are the signals for our 
hero, who, launching into the air, instantly gives chase and 
soon gains on the fish-hawk; each exerts his utmost to 
mount above the other, displaying in these rencounters the 
most elegant and sublime aerial evolutions. The unencum^ 
27 . • 



418 OUR COUNTRY, 

bered eagle rapidly advances, and is just on the point of 
reaching his opponent, when, with a sudden scream, prob- 
ably of despair and honest execration, the latter drops his 
fish ; the eagle, poising himself for a moment as if to take 
a more certain aim, descends like a whirlwind, snatches it in 
his grasp ere it reaches the water, and bears his ill-gotten 
booty silently away to the woods. 

These predatory attacks and defensive manoeuvres of the 
eagle and the fish-hawk are matters of daily observation 
along the whole of our seaboard from Georgia to New Eng- 
land, and frequently excite great interest in the spectators. 
Sympathy, however, on this as on most other occasions, 
generally sides with the honest and laborious sufferer, in op- 
position to the attacks of power, injustice, and rapacity, 
qualities for which our hero is so generally notorious, and 
which in his superior, man, are certainly detestable. As for 
the feelings of the poor fish, they seem altogether out of the 
question. 

When driven, as he sometimes is, by the combined courage 
and perseverance of the fish-haw^ks from their neighborhood, 
and forced to hunt for himself, he retires more inland, in 
search of young pigs, of which he destroys great numbers. 
In the lower parts of Virginia and North Carolina, where 
the inhabitants raise vast herds of those animals, complaints 
of this kind are very general against him. He also destroys 
young lambs in the early part of spring, and will sometimes 
attack old, sickly sheep, aiming furiously at their eyes. 

— Wilson. 



He who survives the freedom and dignity of his country 
has already lived too long. — De Tocqueville. 




OUR COUNTRY. 419 



THE AMERICAN EAGLE. 

lE-D of the cliff! thou art soaring on high ; 
Thou hast swept the dense cloud from thy path in the sky ; 
Thou hast braved the keen flash of the lightning in sport, 
And poised thy strong wing where the thunders resort; 
Thou hast followed the stars in their pathways above, 
And chased the wild meteors wherever they rove. 



Bird of the forest ! thou lov st the deep shade, 

Where the oak spreads its boughs in the mountain and glade, 

Where the thick-cluster'd ivy encircles the pine, 

And the proud elm is wreath'd by the close-clinging vine; 

Thou hast tasted the dew of the untrodden plain, 

And follow'd the streams as they roll to the main; 

Thou hast dipp'd thy swift wing in the feathery spray, 

Where the earth-quaking cataract roars on its way. 

Bird of free skies ! thou hast saiFd on the cloud, 
Where the battle raged fierce, and the cannon roar'd loud ; 
Thou hast stoop'd to the earth when the foeman was slain. 
And waved thy wide wing o'er the blood-sprinkled plain ; 
Thou hast soar'd where the banner of freedom was borne : 
Thou hast gazed at the far dreaded lion in scorn, 
Thy beak has been wet in the blood of our foes, 
When the home of the brave has been left to repose. 

Bird of the clime in which liberty dwells, 

Nurse the free soul in thy cliff-shelter'd dells! 

Hover above the strong heart in its pride, 

AVhisper of those who for freedom have died ! 

Bear up the free-nurtured spirit of man. 

Till it soar like thine own, through its earth-bounded span ! 




420 OUR COUNTRY, 

Waft it above, o'er the mountain and wave — 
Spread thy free wing o'er the patriot's grave. 

— Southern Beligious Telegraph, 



AMERICAN HISTORY. 

^VHE study of tlie history of most other nations 
fills the mind with sentiments, not unlike those 
which the American traveller feels, on entering 
the venerable and lofty cathedral of some proud 
old city of Europe. Its solemn grandeur, its vast- 
ness, and its obscurit}', strike awe to his heart. From 
the richly painted windows, filled with sacred emblems 
and strange antique forms, a dim religious light falls around. 
A thousand recollections of romance, poetry and legendary 
story come thronging in upon him. He is surrounded by 
the tombs of the mighty dead, rich with the labors of an- 
cient art, and emblazoned with the pomp of heraldry. 

What names does he read upon them ? Those of princes 
and nobles who are now remembered only for their vices ; 
and of sovereigns, at whose death no tears w^ere shed, and 
"whose memories lived not an hour in the affection of their 
people. There, too, he sees other names, long familiar to 
him for their guilty or ambiguous fame. There rest the 
blood-stained soldier of fortune, the orator who was ever 
the ready apologist of tyranny^ — great scholars who were the 
pensioned flatterers of power — and poets who profaned the 
high gift of genius, to pamper the vices of a corrupted court. 
Oar own history, on the contrary, like that poetical tem- 
ple of fame, reared by the imagination of Chaucer, and deco- 
rated by the taste of Pope, is almost exclusively dedicated to 



OUR COUNTRY, 421 

the memory of the truly great. Or rather, like the Pan- 
theon of Rome, it stands in calm and severe beauty amid the 
ruins of ancient magnificence and " the toys of modern 
state." Within, no idle ornament encumbers its simplicity. 
The pure light of heaven enters from above and sheds an 
equal radiance around. As the eye wanders about its extent 
it beholds the unadorned monuments of brave and good men 
■who have bled or toiled for their country, or it rests on vo- 
tive tablets inscribed with the names of the best benefactors 
of mankind. 

"Patriots are here, in Freedom's battle slain ; 
Priests, whose long lives were closed without a stain ; 
Bards worthy him who breathed the poet's, mind ; 
Founders of arts that dignify mankind ; 
And lovers of our race, whose labors gave 
Their names a memory that defies the grave.'' 

If Europe has hitherto been wilfully blind to the value of 
our example and the exploits of our sagacity, courage, in- 
vention and freedom, the blame must rest with her, and not 
with America. Is it nothing for the universal good of man- 
kind to have carried into successful operation a system of 
self-government, uniting personal liberty, freedom of opin- 
ion and equality of rights, with national power and dignity, 
such as had before existed only in the Utopian dreams of 
philosophers ? Is it nothing in moral science to have antici- 
pated in sober reality numerous plans of reform in civil and 
criminal jurisprudence, which are, but now, received as 
plausible theories by the politicians and economists of Europe? 

Is it 'nothing to have been able to call forth on every 
emergency, either in war or peace, a body of talents always 
equal to the difficulty? Is it nothing to have, in less than 



422 OUR COUNTRY. 

a half century, exceedingly improved the sciences of politi- 
cal economy, of law, and of medicine, with all their auxil- 
iary branches ; to have enriched human knowledge by the 
accumulation of a great mass of useful facts and observations, 
and to have augmented the power and the comforts of civil- 
ized man by miracles of mechanical invention ? Is it nothing 
to have given the world examples of disinterested patriot- 
ism, of political wisdom, of public virtue, of learning, elo- 
quence and valor, never exerted, save for some praiseworthy 
end? 

Land of Liberty ! thy children have no cause to blush for 
thee. What though the arts have reared few monuments 
among us, and scarce a trace of the Muse's footstep is found 
in the paths of our forests, or along the banks of our rivers, 
yet our soil has been consecrated by the blood of heroes and 
by great and holy deeds of peace. Its wide extent has be- 
come one vast temple and hallowed asylum, sanctified by the 
prayers and blessings of the persecuted of every sect, and 
the wretched of all nations. 

Land of Refuge ! Land of Benedictions ! Those prayers 
still arise and they still are heard : " May peace be within 
thy walls, and plenteousness within thy palaces ! " " May 
there be no decay, nor leading into captivity, and no com- 
plaining in thy streets ! " " May truth flourish out of the 
earth, and righteousness look down from heaven." — Qulian 
G, VerpIancJc, 



There is no country on the globe — not even excepting 
Britain — which contains more happy and cultured homes 
than our own. — T. L. Guyler. 



OUR COUNTRY, 423 



AMERICA THE LAND. 

jJ^^YRTT^ H E name of Commonwealth is past and gone, 
Over three fractions of the groaning globe : 
v\^ Venice is crushed, and Holland deigns to own 
"^ A sceptre, and endures a purple robe. 
If the free Switzer yet bestrides alone 
His chainless mountains, 'tis but for a time : 
For tyranny of late has cunning grown, 
And, in its own good season, tramples down 
The sparkles of our ashes. One great clime. 
Whose vigorous offspring by dividing ocean 
Are kept apart, and nursed in the devotion 
Of Freedom, which their fathers fought for, and 
Bequeathed — a heritage of heart and hand ; 
And proud distinction from each other land, 
Whose sons must bow them at a monarch's motion, 
As if his senseless sceptre were a wand 
Full of the magic of exploded science — 
Still one great clime, in full and free defiance, 
Yet rears her crest, unconquered and sublime. 
Above the far Atlantic ! She has taught 
Her Esau-brethren that the haughty flag, 
The floating fence of Albion's feebler crag, 
May strike to those whose red right hands have 
Rights cheaply earned with blood still, still forever bought, 
Better, though each man's life-blood were a river 
That it should flow and overflow, than creep 
Through thousand lazy channels in our veins. 
Dammed, like the dull canal, with lock and chains, 
And moving, as a sick man in his sleep. 
Three paces, and then faltering : better be 
Where the extinguished Spartans still are free. 



424 ^U^ COUNTRY. 

In their proud charnel of Thermopylae, 
Than stagnate in our marsh ; or o'er the deep 
Fly, and one current to the ocean add, 
One spirit to the souls our fathers had, 
One freeman more. America, to thee ! 

— Lord Byron. 



AMERICAN SCENERY. 

'T strikes the European traveller, at the first burst 
of the scenery of America on his eye, that the 
?« New World of Columbus is also a new world 
from the hand of the Creator. In comparison 
with the old countries of Europe, the vegetation is 
^y SO wondrously lavish, the outlines and minor features 
struck out with so bold a freshness, and the lakes and 
rivers so even in their fulness and flow, yet so vast and 
powerful, that he may well imagine it an Eden newly 
sprung from the ocean. The Minerva-like birth of the 
Kepublic of the United States, its sudden rise to independ- 
ence, wealth, and power, and its continued and marvellous 
increase in population and prosperity, strike him with the 
same surprise, and leave the same impression of a new scale 
of existence, and a fresher and faster law of growth and 
accomplishment. The interest, with regard to both the 
natural and civilized features of America, has very much 
increased within a few years; and travellers, who have ex- 
hausted the unchanging countries of Europe, now turn their 
steps in great numbers to the novel scenery and ever-shifting 
aspects of this. 

The picturesque views of the United States suggest a 




OUR COUNTRY. 425 

train of thought directly opposite to that of similar objects 
of interest in other lands. There, the soul and centre of 
attraction in every picture is some ruin of the ]jast. The 
wandering artist avoids everything that is modern, and 
selects his point of view so as to bring prominently into his 
sketch the castle, or the cathedral, which history or an- 
tiquity has hallowed. The traveller visits each spot in the 
same spirit — ridding himself, as far as possible, of common and 
present associations, to feed his mind on the historical and 
legendary. The objects and habits of reflection in both 
traveller and artist undergo in America a direct revolution. 
He who journeys here, if he would not have the eternal 
succession of lovely natural objects 

" Lie like a load on the weary eye,'' 

must feed his imagination on the future. The American 
does so. His mind, as he tracks the broad rivers of his own 
country, is perpetually reaching forward. Instead of look- 
ing through a valley which has presented the same aspect 
for hundreds of years — in which live lords and tenants 
whose hearths have been surrounded by the same names 
through ages of tranquil descent, and whose fields have 
never changed landmark or mode of culture since the 
memory of men — he sees a valley laden down like a harvest 
wagon with a virgin vegetation, untrodden and luxuriant, 
and his first thought is of the villages that will soon sparkle 
on the hillsides, the axes that will ring from the woodlands, 
and the mills, bridges, canals, and railroads that will span 
and border the stream that now runs through sedge and 
wild flowers. The towns he passes through on his route 
are not recognizable by prints done by artists long ago dead, 
with houses of low-browed architecture, and immemorial; 



426 OUR coryinY. 

but a town which has perhaps doubled its inhabitants and 
dw^ellings since he last saw it, and will again double them 
before he returns. Instead of inquiring into its antiquity, 
he sits over the fire with his paper and pencil, and calculates 
what the population will be in ten years, how far they will 
spread, what the value of the neighboring land will become, 
and whether the stock of some canal or railroad that seems 
more visionary than Symmes's expedition to the centre of the 
earth, will, in consequence, be a good investment. He looks 
upon all external objects as exponents of the future. In 
Europe they only are exponents of the past. 

There is a field for the artist in this country which sur- 
passes every other in richness of picturesque. The great 
difficulty at present is, where to choose. Every mill upon 
the rivers, every hollow in the landscape, every turn in the 
innumerable mountain streams, arrests the painter's eye, and 
offers him some untouched and peculiar variety of an ex- 
haustless nature. It is in river scenery, however, that 
America excels all other lands ; and here the artist's labor is 
not, as in Europe, to embellish and idealize the reality: he 
finds it difficult to come up to it. How represent the ex- 
cessive richness of the foliage ! How draw the vanishing 
lines which mark the swells in the forest ground, the round 
heaps of the chestnut-tops, the greener belts through the 
wilderness which betray the wanderings of the water- 
courses ! How give in so small a space the evasive swiftness 
of the rapid, the terrific plunge of the precipice, or the airy 
wheel of the eagle, as his diminished form shoots off from 
the sharp line of the summit and cuts a circle on the sky ! 

The general architecture of the United States cannot pre- 
tend, of course, to vie with that of older countries; yet, 
taken in connection with the beautiful positions of towns, 



OUR COUNTRY, 427 

no drawing will be found deficient in beauty, while many of 
the public buildings especially are, as works of art, well 
worthy the draughtsman's notice. The curiosity now gen- 
erally excited with regard to this country, by its own 
progress, and by the late numerous books of travels, will 
throw a sufficient interest around every point that the pencil 
could present. 

. . ^' Tlie green land of groves, the beautiful waste, 
Nurse of full streams, and lifter up of proud 
Sky-mingling mountains that overlook the cloud. 

Ere while, where yon gay spires their brightness rear, 
Trees waved, and the brown hunter's shouts were loud 

Amid the forest ; and the bounding deer 

Fled at the glancing plume, and the gaunt wolf yell'd near/ 

"And where his willing waves yon bright blue bay 

Sends up, to kiss his decorated brim, 
And cradles, in his soft embrace, the gay 

Young group of grassy islands born of him. 
And, crowding nigh, or in the distance dim, 

Lifts the white throng of sails, that bear or bring 
The commerce of the world ; with tawny limb, 

And belt and beads in sunlight glistening, 
The savage urged his skiff like wild bird on the wing. 



" Look now abroad — another race has filFd 

These populous borders — Avide the world recedes, 
And towns shoot up, and fertile realms are till'd ; 

The land is full of harvests and green meads ; 
Streams numberless, that many a fountain feeds, 

Shine, disembower'd, and give to sun and breeze 
Their virgin waters ; the full region leads 

New colonies forth, that toward the western seas 
Spread, like a rapid flame, among the autumnal trees. 



428 ^^^ COUNTRY, 

" But tliou, my country, thou shalt never fall, 

But with thy children — thy maternal care, 
Thy lavish love, thy blessing shower'd on all — 

These are thy fetters — seas and stormy air 
Are the wide barrier of thy borders, where, 

Among thy gallant sons that guard thee well. 
Thou laugh'st at enemies : who shall then declare 

The date of thy deep-founded strength, or tell 
How happy, iu thy lap, the sons of men shall dwell." 

—N. P. Willis. 



THE PRAIRIES. 

*^HESE are the gardens of the desert. These 
'] The unshorn fields, boundless and beautiful, 
For which the speech of England has no name — 
The prairies. I behold them for the first. 
And my heart swells, while the dilated sight 
Takes in the encircling vastness. Lo ! they stretch 
In airy undulations, far away. 
As if the ocean, in his gentlest swell. 
Stood still, with all his rounded billows fix'd 
And motionless forever. — Motionless? 
No — they are all unchained again. The clouds 
Sweep over with their shadows, and, beneath, 
The surface rolls and fluctuates to the eye; 
Dark hollows seem to glide along and chase 
The sunny ridges. Breezes of the South ! 
Who toss the golden and the flame-like flowers, 
And pass the prairie-hawk that, poised on high, 
Flaps his broad wings, yet moves not — ye have play'd 
Among the palms of Mexico and vines 
Of Texas, and have crisp'd the limpid brooks 




OUR COUNTRY. 429 

That from the fountains of Sonora glide 
Into the caliu Pacific — have ye fanned 
A nobler or a lovelier scene than this? 
Man hath no part in all this glorious work : 
The hand that built the firmament hath heaved 
And smoothed these verdant swells, and sown their slopes 
With herbage, planted them with island groves, 
And hedged them round with forests. Fitting floor 
For this magnificent temple of the sky — 
AYith flowers whose glory and whose multitude 
Rival the constellations ! The great heavens 
Seem to stoop down upon the scene in love, — 
A nearer vault, and of a tenderer blue, 
Than that which bends above the eastern hills. 
As o'er the verdant waste I guide my steed 
Among the high, rank grass that sweeps his sides, 
The hollow beating of his footstep seems 
A sacrilegious sound. I think of those 
U})on whose rest he tramples. Are they here — • 
The dead of other days? — and did the dust 
Of these fair solitudes once stir with life 
And burn wnth passion ? Let the mighty mounds 
That overlook the rivers, or that rise 
In the dim forest, crowded wnth old oaks, 
Answer. A race, that long has pass'd away. 
Built them ; a disciplined and populous race 
Heap'd, with long toil, the earth, while yet the Greek 
Was hewing the Pentelicus to forms 
Of symmetry, and rearing on its rock 
The glittering Parthenon. These ample fields 
Nourish'd their harvests; here their herds were fed, 
Wlien haply by their stalls the bison low'd. 
And bow'd his maned shoulder to the yoke. 
All day this desert murmur'd with their toils. 
Till twilight blush'd and lovers walk'd, and woo'd 
In a forgotten language, and old tunes, 



430 0^^ COUNTRY. 

From instruments of unremember'd form, 
Gave the soft winds a voice. The red man came— 
The roaming hunter tribes, warlike and fierce, 
And the mound-builders vanish'd from the earth. ^ 
The solitude of centuries untold 
Has settled where they dwelt. The prairie-wolf 
Hunts in their meadows, and his fresh-dug den 
^ Yawns by my path. The gopher mines the ground 
Where stood their swarming cities. All is gone — 
All — save the piles of earth that hold their bones — 
The platforms where they worsliipp'd unknown gods- 
The barriers which they builded from the soil 
To keep the foe at bay — till o'er the walls 
The wild beleaguerers broke, and, one by one, 
The strongholds of the plain were forced, and heaped 
With corpses. The brown vultures of the wood 
Flock'd to those vast, uncovered sepulchres, 
And sat, unscared and silent, at their feast. 
Haply some solitary fugitive, 
Lurking in marsh and forest, till the sense 
Of desolation and of fear became 
Bitterer than death, yielded himself to die. 
Man's better nature triumphed. Kindly words 
Welcomed and soothed him ; the rude conquerors 
Seated the captive with their chiefs ; he chose 
A bride among their maidens, and at length 
Seemed to forget — yet ne'er forgot — the wife 
Of his first love, and her sweet little ones 
Butcher'd amid their shrieks, with all his race. 

Thus change the forms of being. Thus arise 
Races of living things, glorious in strength, 
And perish, as the quickening breath of God 
Fills them, or is withdrawn. The red man, too, 
Has left the blooming wilds he ranged so long, 
And nearer to the Rocky Mountains, sought 
A wider hunting-ground. The beaver builds 



OUR COUNTRY. 431 

No longer by these streams, but far away, 
On waters whose bhie surface ne'er gave back 
The white man's face — among Missouri's springs 
And pools whose issues swell the Oregon, 
He rears his little Venice. In these plains 
The bison feeds no more. Twice twenty leagues 
Beyond remotest smoke of hunter's camp 
Roams the majestic brute, in herds that shake 
The earth with thundering steps — yet here I meet 
His ancient footprints stamp'd beside the pool. 
Still this great solitude is quick with life. 
Myriads of insects, gaudy as the flowers 
They flutter over, gentle quadrupeds. 
And birds, that scarce have learn'd the fear of man, 
Are here, and sliding reptiles of the ground, 
Startlingly beautiful. The. graceful deer 
Bounds to the wood at my approach. The bee, 
A more adventurous colonist than man. 
With whom he came across the eastern deep. 
Fills the savannas with his murmurings. 
And hides his sweets, as in the golden age, 
Within the hollow oak. I listen long 
To his domestic hum, and think I hear 
The sound of that advancing multitude 
Which soon shall fill these deserts. From the ground 
Comes up the laugh of children, the soft voice 
Of maidens, and the sweet and solemn hymn 
Of Sabbath worshippers. The low of herds 
Blends with the rustling of the heavy grain 
Over the dark-brown furrows. All at once 
A fresher wind sweeps by, and breaks my dream. 
And I am in the wilderness alone. 

— William Cullen Bryant. 

One country, one constitution, one destiny. — D. Webster, 




432 ^UR COUNTRY. 



A VISIT TO THE YOSEMITE. 

WICE has it been my privilege and my joy to 
visit the Yosemite Valley. Had it been seven 
times instead of twice, the seventh visit had 
been more instructive and ennobling than the 
sixth. With each return to spot and scene the 
wonder grows, the admiration kindles into flame more 
ardent, and the satisfaction waxes in intensity and 
depth. No description — be it by poet, painter, writer, orator 
— can be thought of as approaching the reality. " The half 
w^is not told," must be the exclamation of the entranced be- 
holder and listener. 

We start, say, from the Palace Hotel ; cross the San 
Francisco bay : enter the cars for Merced City ; and, if the 
mosquitoes will but condescend to permit us, enjoy a good 
night's sleep in preparation for the day's staging. Twelve 
hours at least are spent before reaching Clark's Hotel ; and, 
having rested and slept a second night, we either move on 
to the valley the day following, or remain to spend that day 
in visiting the Mariposa trees. Upon the third day, if we 
choose, we reach the valley by one o'clock, and become the 
guests of Black or Hutchings. 

There are at least three modes of entrance to the valley ; 
that by which I entered passes "Inspiration Point." This 
is the point from whence one gains the first view of the 
glorious spot. We halted and gazed with bated breath and 
brimming eye. What an impertinence is language in pres- 
ence of such a scene ! I thought of Moses as, from Nebo's 
crest, " God showed him all the land," from Hermon's snowy 



OUR COUNTRY. 433 

helmet to where the desert of the south touches Immanuel's 
soil ; from where Jordan winds its -tortuous way to where 
the waves of the Great Sea lave the foot of Carmel ; from 
where Engedi's groves of spice lade the breezes, to where 
Sharon's roses bloom and Gilead's forests bleed their balm. 
There we caught, indeed, the inspiration which has never 
left us or forsaken us since. 

On we dashed, by zigzag but well-constructed road — down, 
round, back, on, round, backward, onward, downward — until 
the level of the Merced river was safely reached ; thence 
through shrubbery and o'er sand and streamlet, until we 
landed in presence of the " Eagle's Nest," and within the 
musical thunder of the Yosemite Falls. 

The valley is about nine miles long, and one mile and a 
half wide. It is forty-one hundred feet above the level of 
the sea. Through it flows the Merced river. The walls of 
the valley are gray granite, nearly vertical, and from three 
thousand to six thousand feet above the level of the valley, 
thus from seven thousand to ten thousand feet above the 
level of the ocean. 

The highest fall in the Yosemite is two thousand six hun- 
dred and thirty-four feet high. This cataract is composed 
of three falls : the first, one thousand six hundred feet ; the 
second, f^YQ hundred and thirty-four feet ; the third, five hun- 
dred feet high. The Nevada fall is the most massive; there 
the main body of the Merced, fresh from the eternal snow 
and ice of the Sierras, leaps six hundred feet, or nearly four 
times as high as Niagara; it is sixty feet wide. From thence 
the river rushes with resfstless impetuosity through a narrow 
gorge over the huge debris of boulders with a noise " as of 
many waters," forming one of the grandest and wildest 
scenes of the valley. 

28 



434 OUR COUNTRY. 

We climbed, partly on foot and partly on horseback, to 
Glacier Point. The travel is perfectly safe, the horses are 
well trained, the road is broad and well defended. On horse- 
back there is but little fatigue experienced. And even were 
the fatigue fourfold greater, one is well repaid for the toil by 
the " visions splendid " which greet him from the projecting 
table which, three thousand two hundred feet above the 
level of the valley, and seven thousand four hundred feet 
above the ocean, permits him to look — out, up, down — on 
one of the most superbly sublime panoramas of this or any 
other orb. 

The cloudless blue is above us; the far-roaming snow- 
robed plateaus of the Sierra beyond us ; the Cap of Liberty 
und Cloud's Kest to our right ; Starr King and Mt. Whitney, 
South Dome and North, rounded and polished by the gigan- 
tic glacier's chisel and plane ; El Capitan to our left ; the 
Three Brothers and the Cathedral Spires on either side of 
the valley; the river but a thread of moving water; the 
Yosemite with its threefold plunge; far off the subdued 
thunder of the Nevada and Yernal Falls. 

Immensity, almightiness, age, time, eternity, the littleness 
and the grandeur of man, the glory and the vanity of earth, 
the self-sufficiency and the incessant activity of Deity, all in 
turn seize the spirit, move, awe, subdue, yet elevate and in- 
spire the heart. I could not speak amid such magnificence. 
Even thought seemed paralyzed in the presence of such 
symbols of the majesty of nature and the surpassing great- 
ness of Him who, through ages innumerable, and by agen- 
cies Titanic, had upheaved and sculptured, dispread and 
massed, consolidated and embellished this august and sacred 
shrine in earth's far-spanning temple ! 

You are impressed with the thought that here all zones 



OUR COUNTRY, 435 

and climates, all forms and colors, all aspects and motions, 
all elements of strength and beauty, of sternness and repose, 
conspire and combine. There is the valley and the gorge ; 
there is the still radiance of the lake and the glad motion of 
the rushing river; there is the meek wild flower and the 
stately pine ; there is the gleam of the many-tinted butter- 
fly and the majestic movement of the soaring eagle ; there 
is eternal winter on the summit, there are the luxuries of 
tropic summer in the dell ; there is mountain and there is 
water; there is beauty and there is sublimity. Dew 
sparkles; timely rains descend; zephyrs glide or loiter; 
wild winds swell and sigh ; thunder crashes, and lightnings 
blaze their banner o'er the dusky sky. The eye is regaled ; 
the ear soothed. Now serenity broods w^ithin you ; and now 
exhilarating ecstasy flashes and flushes and flows over in eye 
and cheek and lip. The adventurous is dared, the explorer 
challenged, the studious wooed, the observing rewarded. 
Earth's dreary noises are unheard, and man's Mammon w^or- 
ship is forgotten. The cares and fretfulness of life, the strife 
and rivalry of time, depart. Nature in her divinest forms 
alone takes possession of the spirit, and man, hushed and 
reverent, bends to catch the speech of God. 

One ought to be very much better for a trip like this. 
One's threefold being — spirit, soul, body — should return 
largely benefited. And it is almost a sin if any one go and 
return unimproved. When such is the case there must be 
some deep-seated unhealthiness, both in body and in soul. 

What do you need to take with you so that you may make 
the most of a visit? No one ought to go there who does not 
take with him clear, open eyes, a wakeful, thoughtful mind, 
an honest, pure, tender heart, and a soul in sympathy with 
the great and benignant Creator, Father, and Friend of man. 



436 OUR COUNTRY, 

I will not stop to say that you need a good, well-filled 
purse. Nor will I stop to say that you need a friend or two, 
full of enthusiasm, of vigor, and of susceptibilities. But I 
will say in one word what you cannot do without, what you 
must . take with you, so as to return most weightily laden 
with most worthy benefit. That word is health; health of 
body, so that you can climb and ride without pain and faint- 
ness, and laugh and cry in turn ; health of heart, purity, 
love, meekness, docility, reverence, wonder, admiration, grati- 
tude; health of intellect, the clear thought, the keen vision, 
the quick ear, the elastic nerve of soul-health ; health of 
your entire manhood or womanhood. 

Sympathy is essential to the full, remunerative enjoyment 
of the Valley and its wonders. There are ears, I believe, 
incapable of distinguishing one note from another. There 
are eyes positively color-blind. There are men who see 
nothing in Milton's " Paradise Lost," because it does not 
mathematically demonstrate any problem. There are na- 
tures so thoroughly petrified by sordidness and sensualism 
that, for their delectation, the Yosemite exists in vain. 
There are self-conceited, self-idolizing creatures who see 
nothing to admire in nature. Over the Mirror Lake they 
sail, and into its depths they glance ; it is the only spot in 
the Valley they enjoy. And why ? Because it is the only 
spot in which, as in a glass, they can look upon themselves 
reflected ! Such as they have reached a stage of culture in 
which the faculty of admiration works not, for it is not. 
The wonder of ingenuous and self-forgetting youth has given 
place to the hard, cruel unfeelingness of a blasted, cinder- 
like muscle once called a heart. 

Sourness and bitterness of spirit disqualify for the Valley. 
Meekness and humility, simple faith and fervent adoration 



OUR COUNTRY. 437 

largely equip for its due and keen appreciation. The clearer 
the understanding, the tenderer the heart, so much the more 
is it likely " thine eye shall see the beauty of the Great 
King " in such a spot as this. You must go with fibre of 
your being tremulous and strung ; with every sense awake 
and vigorous ; with all of memory in play, and all of imag- 
ination in lofty mood and tone. You must go with your 
soul having, as it were, " a look southward, and open to the 
whole noon of nature." As seen through the lenses of some 
atrabilarious natures, there is neither form nor comeliness in 
the loveliest landscapes. 

Nor may you hope for success in your visit if you take 
with you only the Peter-Bell-like spirit : 

^^A primrose by the river's brim, 
A yellow primrose was to him ; 
And it was nothing more." 

Rather take the spirit of him who wrote of the " Daisy ; " 
of him who, placing the Orient seashell to his ear, heard 
through the convolutions of the smooth-lipped conch the 
cadence of the ocean in whose depths the lovely thing was 
fashioned; of him who followed the skylark beyond the 
cloud and heard him carol at the bars of the gate of gold, 
till seraphs ceased to harp and learned to sing, taught by the 
frail denizen of the clover and the sod ; the spirit of him 
who, having looked upon a pond margined by daffodils, sat 
down and wrote : 

" I wander'd lonely as a cloud 

That floats on high o'er vales and hills, 
When all at once I saw a crowd, 

A host of golden daffodils ; 
Beside the lake, beneath the trees, 
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze, 



438 OUE COUJS^TRY, 

Continuous as the stars that shine 

And twinkle on the milky way, 
They stretched in never-ending line 

Along the margin of a bay ; 
Ten thousand saw 1 at a glance, 
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. 
The waves beside them danced, but they 

Outdid the sparkling waves in glee : 
A poet could not but be gay, 

In such a jocund company ! 
I gazed — and gazed — but little thought 
What wealth the show to me had brought : 
For oft, when on my couch I lie. 

In vacant or in pensive mood, 
They flash upon that inward eye 

Which is the bliss of solitude. 
And then my heart with pleasure fills, 

And dances with the daffodils." 

And, last of all, take that state of heart which voiced itself 
in the well-known lines : 

" Not to the domes, whose crumbling arch and column 
Attest the feebleness of mortal hand ; 
But to the fane, most catholic and solemn, 
Which God hath planned ; 

" To that cathedral, boundless as our w^onder. 

Whose quenchless lamps the sun and moon supply, 
Its music, winds and waves — its organ, thunder; 
Its dome, the sky ; 

"There, amidst solitude and shade, to wander 

Through the green aisles, or, stretched upon the sod. 
And by the silence, reverently ponder 
The ways of God.'' 

— Thomas Guard. 



OUS COVNTBY. 439 



DESCRIPTION OF NIAGARA FALLS. 



^ 



i^M^T the point where the river issues from Lake Erie, 
^ ^ ^ it assumes the name of Niagara. It is something 
more than three-quarters of a mile in width, and 
the broad and powerful current embosoms two 
islands ; one of them, Grand Isle, containing 11,000 
acres, and the other. Navy Island, opposite to the 
British village of Chippeway. Below this island the 
river again becomes an unbroken sheet, a mile in width. 
For half a mile below, it seems to be waxing in wrath and 
power. Were this rapid in any other place, itself would be 
noted as one of the sublimest features of river scenery. 
Along this rapid, the broad and irresistible mass of rolling 
waters is not entirely whitened, for it is too deep to become 
so. But it has something of that curling and angry aspect 
which the sea exhibits when swept by the first blasts of a 
tempest. The momentum may be conceived when we are 
instructed that in half a mile the river has a descent of fifty 
feet. A column of water, a mile broad, twenty-five feet 
deep, and propelled onward by the weight of the surplus 
waters of the whole prodigious basin of the lakes, rolling 
down this rapid declivity, at length pours over the cataract, 
as if falling to the central depths of the earth. 

Instead of sublimity, the first feeling excited by this stu- 
pendous cataract is amazement. The mind accustomed only 
to ordinary phenomena and common exhibitions of power, 
feels a revulsion and recoils from the new train of thought 
and feeling forced in an instant upon it. There is hardly 
sufficient coolness for distinct impressions, much less for cal- 



440 OUR COUNTRY, 

culations. "We witness the white and terrific sheets — for an 
island on the very verge of the cataract divides the fall — 
descending more than 150 feet into the abyss below. We 
feel the earth trembling under our feet. The deafening roar 
fills our ears. The spray, painted with rainbows, envelops 
us. We imagine the fathomless caverns, which such an im- 
petus, continued for ages, has worn. Nature arrays herself 
before us, in this spectacle, as an angry and irresistible 
power, that has broken away from the beneficent control of 
Providence. 

When we have gazed upon the spectacle and heard the 
roar until the mind has recovered from its amazement, we 
believe the first obvious thought in most minds is a shrink- 
ing comparison of the littleness and helplessness of man and 
the insignificance of his pigmy efforts when measuring 
strength with nature. Take it all in all, it is one of the 
most sublime and astonishing spectacles seen on our globe. 
The eye distinctly measures the amount of the mass, and we 
can hardly avoid thinking with the peasant that the waters 
of the upper world must shortly be drained down the cata- 
ract. But the stream continues to pour down, and this con- 
centrated and impressive symbol of the power of Omnipo- 
tence proclaims his majesty through the forest from age to 



age. 



An earthquake, the eruption of a volcanic mountain, tbe 
conflagration of a city, are all spectacles in which terror is 
the first and predominant emotion. The most impressive 
exertion of human power is only seen in the murderous and 
sickening horrors of a conflict between two mighty armies. 
These, too, are transient and contingent exhibitions of sub- 
limity. But after we have stood an hour at the foot of these 
falls, after the eye has been accustomed to look upon them 




OUR COUNTRY. 44I 

without blanching, after the ear has become familiarized with 
the deafening and incessant roar, when the mind begins to 
calculate the grandeur of the scale of operations upon which 
nature acts, then it is that the entire and unmingled feeling 
of sublimity rushes upon it, and this is, probably, the place 
on the whole globe where it is felt in its most unmixed sim- 
plicity. 



PAUL JONES AND THE NAVY OF 
THE REVOLUTION. 

COMMODORE PAUL JONES was born in Scot- 
land. His fiither, a respectable man in the lower 
^^^1^:^ walks of life, could only afford him a moderate 
)(^^^ education for a boy twelve years old. Having 
fed his roving fancy wnth tales of adventure gleaned 
from the old sailors who frequented the ship-yards and 
lounged in the nautical haunts along the shores of Sol- 
way Frith, near his home, he resolved at that age to visit 
America. Circumstances favored his intentions ; and here 
he passed several years of his life. He became engaged in 
commerce, and studied navigation. This he carried into 
practical experience during two or three voyages to the 
coast of Africa ; and, after holding several important com- 
mands in the commercial marine, he tendered his services to 
the infant navy of the colonies — satisfied that their cause 
was the cause of justice and of right, and anxious to distin- 
guish himself as a defender of that which his conscience ap- 
proved and to which his generous and heroic sympathies di- 
rected him. We first find him commanding the "Ariel," one 
of the two ships that constituted the navy of Congress at 




442 OUR COUNTRY. 

that time. Jones was now twenty-eight years of age. The 
historian claims for him the honor of raising, with his own 
hands, the flag of independent America on board the 
"Ariel," in the Delaware river — the first time it w^as ever 
displayed on board a regular American vessel of war. From 
the "Ariel " he was transferred to the " Eanger," and bore in 
her to France despatches of the victory of Saratoga. While 
in a French port, he received from the French commander 
the first salute that was ever given to the American flag in 
a foreign port. 

In 1778 he made a descent on the English coast, surpris- 
ing a garrison and capturing a fort, destroying shipping, and 
taking a king's ship, called the " Drake," in Carrickfergus 
Bay, throwing the coasts of Ireland and Scotland into con- 
sternation, and causing the British Government great ex- 
penditure in fortifying their harbors. We now approach the 
most daring exploit of this truly great character. In com- 
pany with a fleet of vessels fitted out in France, by the as- 
sistance of the French Government, aided by the exertions 
of Benjamin Franklin, we find him at sea, preying on the 
English commerce, and boldly attacking the ships of the 
enemy wherever met. 

September 2, 1776, Paul Jones, in the " Bonhomme 
Richard," in company with the '^ Pallas " and the "Alliance," 
fell in with the returning Baltic fleet of merchantmen, under 
convoy of the king's ships, the '' Serapis," forty-four guns, 
and the "Countess of Scarborough," twenty-two guns. These 
ships at once signalled the merchantmen to keep on their 
course, while they boldly stood out to sea, inviting an action. 
The battle was fought on the eastern coast of England, off 
Flamborough Head, at night, the moon occasionally lighting 
the combatants. Paul Jones, in the "' Bonhomme Richard," 



OUR COUNTRY. 443 

fought the '^ Serapis," while the " Pallas " engaged the " Scar- 
borough." The "Alliance," frigate, under the command of 
Captain Landais, a Frenchman, who, from his record, must 
have been either a madman or a traitor to the cause he had 
espoused, kept aloof during the greater part of the fight, 
only coming. in towards its close to fire broadside after broad- 
side in such a direction as to injure the "Bonhomme Rich- 
ard" as much, if not more, than the enemy — in fact, leaving 
it doubtful against which vessel he had aimed his guns. 
After a severe fight, the " Scarborough " struck her flag to 
the " Pallas." 

Paul Jones, who had maintained a desperate conflict with 
his antagonist, despairing of conquering him at long range, 
on account of the disabled condition of many of his guns, 
and of the inferior calibre of the remainder, now determined 
to run the " Serapis " aboard. This bold manoeuvre was 
successfully accomplished, and, lashing his ship to that of 
his foe, he continued the fight, as sailors say, "yard-arm to 
yard-arm," the gunners on the lower decks of both vessels 
actually fighting through the port-holes to prevent one 
another from ramming home the charges of their guns. 

Some of the lower deck cannon on board the " Richard " 
burst in the earlier part of the action, tearing up the decks 
above in a frightful manner. During a momentary lull in 
the firing, occasioned by this accident, the British com- 
mander hailed, and demanded whether the " Richard " had 
surrendered, to which Paul Jones replied, " No : we have 
not yet begun to fight." Striding from point to point, the 
hero might then be seen, now on the deck slippery with 
blood, now in the shrouds, trumpet in hand, calling away 
his boarders to hurl them on the deck of the enemy, stimu- 
lating his crew to renewed efforts by words of fiery courage, ' 



444 OUR countj 

and leading in the van of every danger. Let us here 
imagine the commodore turning suddenly at a cry for quar- 
ter, uttered by some craven souls who thought the vessel 
was sinking. The flag-staff was shot away, the ensign was 
trailing in the water over the stern ; voices cry from out 
the smoke and darkness, "" Quarter for God's sake ! we are 
sinking." Pistols flash, 'and a stentorian voice is heard 
shouting, *^Who are those rascals? Shoot them! Kill 
them ! " The rushing of hurrying feet across the deck, the 
dash of heavy bodies leaping through the hatchways, tell, 
in unmistakable terms, that the speaker there is more to be 
dreaded than the terrors of the sinking ship. 

From all accounts, the conflict at this juncture must have 
been terrible beyond description. While the sides of the 
ship were being literally pounded to pieces by cannon 
actually fired within a few feet of the timbers they were 
crushing, the men, maddened to fury by wounds, flame, and 
smoke, were fighting with hatchets, pikes, and every other 
weapon at hand, including even the rammers of the guns; 
and while this was going on below the decks, the rigging 
and round-tops presented a still more frightful picture. The 
vessels were both now on fire, the flames pouring up through 
the gaps in the deck, licking up the tarry ropes and tackle, 
and throwing around all a lurid light of terror. The yard- 
arms of the contending ships crossed each other's decks, 
entangled and enveloped in smoke, crowded with sailors, 
cutting and hacking at each other, more like devils than 
men, while some exploded hand grenades on the heads of 
those below. The musketry of the marines rattling from 
the decks and blending with the sullen roar of cannon, the 
sharpshooters in the tops, dealing death from above, the 
shouts of the commanders, the cries of the combatants, of 



OUR COUNTRY. 445 

pain or of defiance, the crackling shooting through enshroud- 
ing smoke, the decks all ablaze with fire or enveloped in 
Egyptian darkness — these separate horrors all combined to 
render that midnight death-struggle on the ocean more 
like a picture of fiends and furies, conjured up to delight 
the hellish fancies of infernal spectators, realizing the 
words of Shakespeare, '^ Hell is empty, and all the devils are 
here." 

And yet such are the scenes from which we draw our in- 
spirations of heroism, and in which we see our cherished 
types of valor, daring, and patriotism. How truly these 
gallant combatants realize that fierce pleasure Sir Walter 
Scott speaks of — 

"The stern joy that clansmen feel, 
In foemen worthy of their steel ! ' ' 

This terrible and obstinate conflict lasted three and a 
half hours ; and when the Englishman surrendered, his 
vessel was found to be anchored, and the flag nailed to the 
mast. Some time, therefore, elapsed before the usual token 
of submission could be made manifest ; while our vessel was 
only kept afloat by the almost superhuman efforts of a 
body of prisoners, who had been confined below decks, and 
had been during the latter part of the action set at liberty 
by the officer in charge. Had it not been for this circum- 
stance, the " Bonhomme Richard" would have sunk along 
side her enemy before his flag had been struck. 

Thus ended one of the most sanguinary battles ever 
fought on the ocean. The " Bonhomme Richard" sank the 
next morning — the officers and crew being first transferred 
on board the English ship, which was almost as badly dis- 
abled as the " Richard." She, however, was kept afloat, but 



446 ^^^ COUNTRY, 

with great difficulty, and finally made the Texel, to which 
port Paul Jones had been ordered for repairs. 

The "Alliance" now became the flag-ship of our hero, and 
in her he made another of those voyages which called forth 
the eulogy of the nation, and during which the enemy's 
gazettes had, as usual, matter enough for comment on the 
movements and doings of the " Bold Buccaneer," as they 
termed him. 

During the next year we find Commodore Jones in Amer- 
ica once more, where he received a vote of thanks from Con- 
gress and the appointment to the command of an American 
seventy-four; but, the war terminating soon after, he did 
not get into active service again. The king of France pre- 
sented him with a gold-mounted sword, and requested Con- 
gress to decorate him with the " Order of Merit." This was 
done, the badge, etc., having been sent over for the purpose. 
Congress also presented him with a gold medal, in considera- 
tion of the zeal, prudence and intrepidity with which he had 
sustained the honor of the American flag. He was now the 
Chevalier Paul Jones, and, having returned to Paris on a 
mission for the United States, he was honored by the Em- 
press of Russia with an appointment as rear admiral of the 
Russian fleet. He served with distinction, and was invested 
with the " Order of St. Anna." He retired for the last time 
to Paris, and died there, much honored and respected. His 
funeral was marked by public ceremonies befitting a hero 
and a good man, which there is no doubt he was. " That 
Paul Jones was a remarkable man," says Cooper, the naval 
historian, "cannot justly be questioned. In his enterprises 
are to be discovered much of that boldness of conception 
that marks a great naval captain ; though his most cele- 
brated battle is probably the one in which he evinced no 



OUR COUNTRY. 447 

other very high quality than that of invincible resolution to 
conquer. The expedient of running the ' Serapis ' aboard 
was like him ; and it was the only chance of victory that 
was left." 

It will be remembered that the lamented Lawrence in- 
tended to accomplish the same result with the " Shannon." 
But accident frustrated his plan and gave the enemy an ad- 
vantage, which resulted in the capture of our ship and the 
death of her commander. In all bold and daring departures 
from custom or orders, success throws a halo of glory around 
the master spirit of innovation, while failure is attended 
with obloquy and oblivion. 

Frost, in his " Naval Memoirs," pays this tribute to the 
memory of the man the nation honored: "It is but just to 
place him among the first of our naval commanders; for his 
splendid career exhibited a degree of courage and ability 
which have been surpassed by none of those who have suc- 
ceeded him in the brilliant line of our naval heroes." 

— James E, Murdoch, 



HAIL, COLUMBIA. 

AIL, Columbia ! happy land ! 
Hail, ye heroes ! heaven-born band ! 

Who fought and bled in Freedom's cause, 

Who fought and bled in Freedom's cause, 
And when the storm of war was gone, 
Enjoy'd the peace your valor won. 

Let Independence be our boast, 

Ever mindful what it cost ; 

Ever grateful for the prize, 

Let its altar reach the skies. 




i48 ^^^ COUNTRY. 

Firm — ^united — let us be, 
Rallying round our Liberty; 
As a band of brothers join'd, 
Peace and safety we shall find. 

Immortal patriots ! rise once more ; 

Defend your rights, defend your shore ; 
Let no rude foe, with impious hand, 
Let no rude foe, with impious hand, 

Invade the shrine where sacred lies 

Of toil and blood the weli-earn'd prize. 
While offering peace sincere and just, 
In heaven we place a manly trust. 
That truth and justice will prevail. 
And every scheme of bondage fail. 
Firm — united, etc. 

Sound, sound the trump of Fame! 

Let Washington's great name 

Ring through the world with loud applause, 
Ring through the world with loud applause, 

Let every clime to Freedom dear 

Listen with a joyful ear. 

With equal skill, and god-like power, 
He governs in the fearful hour 
Of horrid war ; or guides, with ease, 
The happier times of honest peace. 
Firm — united, etc. 

Behold the Chief who now commands. 
Once more to serve his country, stands — 
The rock on which the storm will beat, 
The rock on which the storm will beat. 
But, arm'd in virtue, firm and true. 
His hopes are fix'd on heaven and you. 



OUR COUNTRY, 449 

When hope was sinking in dismay, 
And glooms obscured Columbia's day, 
His steady mind, from changes free, 
Resolved on death or liberty. 
Firm — united, etc. 

— Joseph Hopkinson. 



OUR COUNTRY'S GREATEST GLORY. 

<tHE true glory of a nation is in an intelligent) 
honest, industrious Christian people. The civili- 
zation of a nation depends on their individual 
character; a constitution which is not the out- 
growth of this is not worth the parchment on which 
it is written. You look in vain in the past for a single 
instance where the people have preserved their liberties 
after their individual character was lost. The ruler repre- 
sents the people, and laws and institutions are the simple 
outgrowth of domestic character. It is not in the magnif- 
icence of the home of the ruler, not in the beautiful crea- 
tions of art lavished on public edifices, not in costly cabinets 
of pictures or public libraries, not in proud monuments 
of achievements in battle, not in the number or wealth of 
its cities, that we find pledges of national glory. The ruler 
may gather around his palace the treasures of the w^orld, 
amid a brutalized people ; the sernate chamber may retain 
its faultless proportions long after the voice of patriotism is 
hushed within its walls : the marble may commemorate a 
glory which has forever departed. Art and letters may. 
bring no lesson to a people whose heart is dead ; the only 
glory of a nation is in the living temple of a loyal, indus- 

29 




450 ^UR COUNTRY. 

trious and upright people. The busy click of machinery, 
the merry ring of the anvil, the lowing of peaceful herds, 
and the song of the harvest home, are sweeter music than 
paeans of departed glory or songs of triumph in war. The 
vine-clad cottage of the hill-side, the cabin of the woods- 
man, and the rural home of the farmer are the true citadels 
of any country. There is a dignity in honest toil which 
belongs not to the display of wealth or the luxury of fashion. 
The man who drives the plow, or swings his ax in the 
forest, or with cunning fingers plies the tools of his craft, 
is as truly the servant of his country, as the statesman in 
the senate or the soldier in battle. The safety of a nation 
depends not on the wisdom of its statesmen or the bravery 
of its generals ; the tongue of eloquence never saved a nation 
tottering to its fall ; the sword of a warrior never stayed its 
destruction. There Is a surer defence in every Christian 
home. I say Christian home, for I know of no glory to 
manhood which comes not from the cross. I know of no 
rights wrung from tyranny, no truth rescued from darkness 
and bigotry, which has not waited on a Christian civiliza- 
tion. Would you see the image of true glory, I would show 
you villages where the crown and glory of the people was 
in purity of character, where the children were gathered in 
Christian schools, where the voice of prayer goes heaven- 
ward, where the people have- that most priceless gift — 
faith in Gvd. With this as the basis, and leavened as it will 
be with brotherly love, there will be no danger in grappling 
with any evils which exist in our midst; we shall feel that 
we may work and bide our time, and die knowing that God 
will bring the victory. — Bishop Whipple, 




OUM COUNTRY. 45I 



IDEAS THE LIFE OF A PEOPLE. 

VHE leaders of our Revolution were men of whom 
)^ the simple truth is the highest praise. Of every 
^ condition in life, they were singularly sagacious, 
sober and thoughtful. Lord Chatham spoke only 
the truth when he said to Franklin, of the men who 
composed the colonial Congress : " The Congress is the 
most honorable assembly of statesmen since those of the 
ancient Greeks and Romans in the most virtuous times." 
Given to grave reflection, they were neither dreamers nor 
visionaries, and they were much too earnest to be rhetori- 
cians. It is a curious fact that they were generally men of 
so calm a temper that they lived to extreme age. With the 
exception of Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams, they were 
most of them profound scholars, and studied the history of 
mankind that they might know men. They were so familiar 
with the lives and thoughts of the wisest and best minds of 
the past that a classic aroma hangs about their writings and 
their speech ; and they were profoundly convinced of what 
statesmen always know, and the adroit tests mere politicians 
never perceive — that ideas are the life of a people; that the 
conscience, not the pocket, is the real citadel of a nation, and 
that when you have debauched and demoralized that con- 
science by teaching that there are no natural rights, and that 
therefore there is no moral right or wrong in political 
action, you have poisoned the wells and rotted the crops in 
the ground. 

The greatest living statesmen of England knew this also. 
Edmund Burke knew it, and Charles James Fox, and .Wil- 



452 OUR COUNTRY. 

liam Pitt, Earl of Chatham. But they did not speak for the 
king, or Parliament, or the English nation. Lord Gower 
spoke for them when he said in Parliament, " Let the 
Americans talk about their national and divine rights ; their 
rights as men and citizens ; their rights from God and nature ! 
I am for enforcing these measures." My lord was con- 
temptuous, and the king hired the Hessians, but the truth 
remained true. The fathers saw the scarlet soldiers swarm- 
ing over the sea, but more steadily they saw that national 
progress had been secure only in the degree that the politi- 
cal system had conformed to natural justice. They knew 
the coming wreck of property and trade, but they knew 
more surely that Rome was never so rich as when she was 
dying, and, on the other hand, the Netherlands never so 
powerful as when they were poorest. Farther away, they 
read the names of Assyria, Greece, Egypt. They had art, 
opulence, splendor. Corn enough grew in the valley of the 
Nile. The Syrian sword was as sharp as any. They were 
merchant princes, and the clouds in the sky were rivalled by 
their sails upon the sea. They were soldiers, and their 
frown frightened the world. 

'^ Soul, take thine ease " those empires said, languid with 
excess of luxury and life. Yes; but you remember the 
king who had built his grandest palace, and was to occupy it 
upon the morrow ; but when the morrow came the palace 
was a pile of ruins. " Woe is me ! " cried the king, " who is 
guilty of this crime ? " " There is no crime," replied the 
sage at his side; "but the mortar was made of sand and 
water only, and the builders forgot to put in the lime." So 
fell the old empires, because the governors forgot to put jus- 
tice into their governments. — Oeorge TF. Curtis, 




OUR COUNTRY, 453 



INTELLIGENCE THE TRUE BASIS OF 

LIBERTY. 

O.W well said Washington — who said all things, 
as he did all things, well — " that in proportion as 
governments rest on public opinion, that opinion 
„. , ,^ must be enlightened. There then must be intel- 
J^^'^ ligence at the foundation. But what intelligence? 
Not that which puiFeth up, I fancy, not flippancy, not 
smartness, not sciolism, whose fruits, whose expression, 
are vanity, restlessness, insubordination, hate, irreverence, 
unbelief, incapacity to combine ideas, and great capacity to 
overwork a single one. Not quite this. This is that little 
intelligence and little learning which are dangerous. These 
are the characteristics, I have read, which pave the way for 
the downfall of States ; not those on which a long glory and 
a long strength have towered. These, more than the gen- 
eral of Macedon, gave the poison to Demosthenes in the 
Island Temple. These, not the triumvirate alone, closed the 
eloquent lips of Cicero. These, before the populous North 
had done it, spread beneath Gibraltar to the Lybian sands in 
the downward age; these, not Christianity, not Goth, not 
Lombard, not Norman, rent that fair one, Italy, asunder, and 
turned the garden and the mistress of the earth into a school, 
into a hiding-place of assassins — of spies from Austria, of 
spies from France, with gold to buy and ears to catch and 
punish the dreams of liberty whispered in sleep, and shamed 
the memories and hopes of Machiavel and Mazzini, and gave 
for that joy and that beauty, mourning and heaviness. This 
is not the intelligence our Constitution means, Washington 



454 OUR COUNTRY, 

meant, our country needs. It is intelligence which, however 
it begins, ends with belief, v/ith humility, with obedience, 
with veneration, with admiration, with truth ; which recog- 
nizes and then learns and then teaches the duties of a com- 
prehensive citizenship ; which hopes for a future on earth 
and beyond earth, but turns habitually, thoughtfully, to the 
old paths, the great men, the hallowed graves of the fathers ; 
which binds in one bundle of love the kindred and mighty 
legend of revolution and liberty, the life of Christ in the 
Evangelists, and the Constitution in its plain text; which 
can read with Lord Chatham, Thucydides and the stories of 
master statesmen of antiquity ; yet holds with him that the 
papers of the Congress of 1776 were better; whose patriot- 
ism grows warm at Marathon, but warmer at Monmouth, at 
Yorktown, at Bunker Hill, at Saratoga ; which reforms by 
persevering, serves by standing and waiting, fears God and 
honors America. — Bufas Choate, 



OUR NATION STARTED RIGHT. 

^^HE men of the Revolution started without a State 
^ Church ; but they started with an Open Bible, 
y> with a heaven-planted conscience, and with the 
blessing of the God of heaven. These three 
were enough of capital, I dare say. These men 
had too firm a faith in conscience, in truth, in God, to 
think of leaning upon human government for support 
in the maintenance of that which they esteemed more pre- 
cious than ease, than profit, than love of country ; aye, than 
love of life. The men who fled from Louis XIY., as Hugue- 




OUR COUNTRY, 455 

nots, might not they be trusted to feed the fires of piety ? 
The men who fled from the hills and gorges of the Waldenses 
from Sardinian tyrants, might not they be trusted to keep 
their piety pure ? The men who fled from the crooked- 
hearted Stuarts of England, for conscience sake, might not 
they be trusted with the holy art of godly worship? 

— Thomas Guard. 



THE SEED CORN OF THE REPUBLIC. 

'HE real seed corn whence our republic sprang was 
the Christian households, which stepped forth 
^ from the cabin of the " Mayflower," or which set 
up the family altar ©f the Hollander and the 
Huguenot on Manhattan Island or in the sunny 
South. All our best characters, best legislation, best 
institutions, and best church life were cradled in those 
early homes. They were the tap-root of the republic, and 
of the American churches. 

For one, I care but little for the government which pre- 
sides at Washington in comparison with the government 
which rules the eight or ten millions of American homes. 
No administration can seriously harm us if our home life is 
pure, frugal, and godly. No statesmanship or legislation can 
save us, if once our homes become the abodes of ignorance 
or the nestling places of profligacy. The home rules the 
nation. If the home is demoralized it will ruin it. — T. L. 
GayJer,D,D, 

With malice towards none, with charity for slL—Abrahain 
Lincoln. 




456 



OUR COUNTRY. 




MISSION OF AMERICA. 

OLUMBIA, Columbia, to glory arise, 
The queen of the world, and child of the skies! 
Thy genius commands thee; with rapture behold, 
While ages on ages thy splendors unfold. 
Thy reign is the last and the noblest of time, 
Most fruitful thy soil, most inviting thy clime; 
Let the crimes of the East ne'er encrimson thy name, 
Be freedom and science and virtue thy fame. 



To conquest and slaughter let Europe aspire ; 
Whelm nations in blood, and wrap cities in fire; 
Thy heroes the rights of mankind shall defend. 
And triumph pursue them, and glory attend. 
A world is thy realm ; for a world be thy laws, 
Enlarged as thine empire, and just as thy cause; 
On Freedom's broad basis that empires shall rise. 
Extend with the main, and dissolve with the skies. 

Fair science her gates to thy sons shall unbar. 
And the east see thy morn hide the beams of her star, 
New bards and new sages unrivalled shall soar 
To fame unextinguished when time is no more; 
To thee, the last refuge of virtue designed, 
Shall fly from all nations the best of mankind ; 
Here grateful to heaven, with transports shall brirtg 
Their incense, more fragrant than odors of spring. 



Nor less shall thy fair ones to glory ascend. 
And genius and beauty in harmony blend ; 
The graces of form shall awake pure desire, 
And the charms of the soul ever cherish the fire; 



OUR COUNTRY, 457 

Their sweetness unmingled, their manners refined, 
And virtue's bright image, enstamped on the mmd, 
With peace and soft rapture shall teach life to glow, 
And light up a smile on the aspect of woe. 

Thy fleets to all regions thy power shall display, 
The nations admire, and the ocean obey; 
Each shore to thy glory its tribute unfold, 
And the east and the south yield their spices and gold. 
As the day spring unbounded thy splendor shall flow. 
And earth^s little kingdoms before thee shall bow, 
While the ensigns of union, in triumph unfurled. 
Hush the tumult of war, and give peace to the world. 

Thus, as down a lone valley, with cedars o'erspread. 
From war's dread confusion, I pensively strayed — 
The gloom from the face of fair heaven retired ; 
The winds ceased to murmur, the thunders expired • 
Perfumes, as of Eden, flowed sweetly along, 
And a voice, as of angels, enchantingly sung : 
"Columbia, Columbia, to glory arise, 
The queen of the world, and the child of the skies." 

— Timothy Dwight. 



OPENING OF THE CENTENNIAL 
EXPOSITION. 

HE day of opening came. Philadelphia was 
thronged with strangers from all parts of the 
^ world. Every line of travel contributed its 
^ multitude. The morning of the 10th of May 
broke heavily with clouds and rain. But patriotism 
made gloom impossible in the Quaker city, and enthu- 
siasm supplied the place of sunshine. A thousand flags 
fluttered in every street, and more than ten times ten thou- 




458 <^UR COUXTEY. 

sand people, cheering as they went, pressed their way to- 
wards Fairmount Park. A military escort, four thousand 
strong, conducted the President of the United States to the 
Centennial grounds. For it was he who should declare the 
formal opening of the Exposition. The notables of many 
nations had already preceded him to Ihe scene of the cere- 
monies. The great open space — traversed by the Avenue 
of the Republic — between the Main Building and Memorial 
Hall, had been prepared for the inauguration. There had 
been assembled the Supreme Court of the United States, 
Members of the Cabinet and the American Congress, the 
Governors of many of the States, distinguished officers of the 
army and navy, the ministers from foreign countries, Dom 
Pedro IL, of Brazil, and his queen, illustrious civilians, 
statesmen and diplomatists, noblemen with titles and greater 
men without them, to witness the imposing pageant. 

At the appointed hour the splendid orchestra, led by 
Theodore Thomas, burst forth with the national airs of the 
various countries participating in the Exhibition. Soon the 
President ascended the platform and was seated, with the 
Brazilian Emperor and Empress on his right. Then followed 
Wagner's celebrated Centennial Inauguration March, com- 
posed for the occasion. Matthew Simpson, Bishop of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, then offered an eloquent and 
fervent prayer, which was followed by the singing of John 
G. Whit tier's Centennial Hymn. When the strains had died 
away, the Honorable John Welsh, Chairman of the Board 
of Finance, arose and made a formal presentation of the 
buildings and grounds to General Hawley, President of the 
Centennial Commission. The latter, in an appropriate 
manner, accepted the trust ; and then followed the singing 
of Sidney Lanier's Centennial Cantata, General Hawley 



OUR COUNTRY. 459 

next delivered an address, recounting briefly the things 
accomplished by the Centennial Commission, and in the 
name thereof presenting to the President of the United 
States the International Exhibition of 1876. The President 
— most famous of all American chief-magistrates for not 
delivering orations — replied to General Hawley in the follow- 
ing well-chosen address :— 

''My Countrymen : It has been thought appropriate, upon 
this Centennial occasion, to bring together in Philadelphia, 
for popular inspection, specimens of our attainments in the 
industrial and fine arts, and in literature, science, and phi- 
losophy, as well as in the great business of agriculture and 
commerce. That we may the more thoroughly appreciate 
the excellencies and deficiencies of our achievements and 
also give emphatic expression to our earnest desire to culti- 
vate the friendship of our fellow-members of this great family 
of nations, the enlightened agricultural, commercial, and 
manufacturing people of the world have been invited to send 
hither corresponding specimens of their skill to exhibit on 
equal terms, with friendly competition with our own. For 
so doing we render them our hearty thanks. The beauty 
and utility of the contributions will this day.be submitted 
to your inspection. We are glad to know that a view of 
specimens of the skill of all nations will afford you unalloyed 
pleasure, as well as yield to you a valuable practical knowl- 
edge of so many of the remarkable results of the wonderful 
skill existing in enlightened communities. 

" One hundred years ago our country was new, and but 
partially settled. Our. necessities have compelled us chiefly 
to expend our means and time in felling forests, subduing 
prairies, building dwellings, factories, ships, docks, ware- 
houses, roads, canals, and machinery. Most of our schools, 



460 ^UB COUNTRY. 

churches, librarieSj and asylums have been established within 
a hundred years. Burdened with these great primal works 
of necessity, which could not be delayed, we yet have 
done what this Exhibition will show in the direction of 
rivaUing older and more advanced nations in law, medicine, 
and theology ; in science, literature, philosophy, and the fine 
arts. Whilst proud of what we have done, we regret that 
we have not done more. Our achievements have been great 
enough, however, to make it easy for our people to acknowl- 
edge superior merit wherever found. 

"And now, fellow-citizens, I hope a careful examination of 
what is about to be exhibited to you will not only inspire 
you with a profound respect for the skill and taste of our 
friends from other nations, but also satisfy you with the 
attainments made by our own people during the past one hun- 
dred years. I invoke your generous co-operation with the 
worthy commissioners, to secure a brilliant success to this 
International Exhibition, and to make the stay of our for- 
eign visitors — to whom we extend a hearty welcome — both 
profitable and pleasant to them. 

" I declare the International Exhibition now open." 
When the President's brief oration was concluded the 
national ensign was flung out as a signal from the great 
flag-staff of the main building ; the banners of foreign 
nations were immediately unfurled ; cheers rent the air ; a 
salute of a hundred guns from the battery on George's Hill 
answered to the shout. Memorial Hall, the Main Building, 
and Machinery Hall were now thrown open to receive the 
procession of invited guests — four thousand in number, and 
first to behold the handiwork of the nations. General 
Grant and Major Alfred T. Goshorn, the able and indefatig- 
able Director-General of the Exhibition, led the way from 



OUR CO UKTRT 



461 



the Main Building, and down the great isle of Machinery 
Hall to the centre, where a special work had been reserved 
for the President and the Brazilian Emperor. This honor- 
able duty was to open the valves of the mighty Corliss 
Engine, whose tremendous pistons were to start into life and 
motion the infinite machinery of the hall. At twenty 
minutes past one o'clock the signal was given by George H. 
Corliss, the maker of the iron giant. The President and 
the Emperor, standing upon the raised platform, opened the 
valves ; the ponderous fly-wheel started on its tireless rounds, 
and the multitudinous enirines of the hall began their varied 
w^ork. The Centennial Exhibition was fairly inaugurated 
under the most auspicious omens. — John Clarh RidpatJi, 



CENTENNIAL HYMN 

^^^UR fathers' - 
^ff^^^ The centuri 



God ! from out whose hand 
centuries fall Hke grains of sand, 
5% We meet to-day, united, free, 
-> And loyal to our land and thee, 
To thank thee for the era done, 
And trust thee for the opening one. 




Here, where of old, by thy design 
The fathers spake that word of thine, 
Whose echo is the glad refrain 
Of rended bolt and falling chain, 
To grace our festal time, from all 
The zones of earth our guests we call. 



Be with us while the new world greets 
The old world thronging all its streets, 



462 



OUR COUNTRY. 



Unveiling all the triumphs won 
By art or toil beneath the sun ; 
And unto common good ordain 
This rivalship of hand and brain. 

Thou, who hast here in concord furled 
The war flags of a gathered world, 
Beneath our Western skies fulfil 
The Orient's mission of good-will, 
And, freighted with love's golden fleece, 
Send back the argonauts of peace. 

— John O. Whittier 




GREETING TO AMERICA. 

Land of promise, fair and free, 

Earth's opening morning glory, 
Columbia, hail ! Fame tells of thee 

A short but wondrous story. 
From Vasa's land to Washington's, 
The way is far, but freedom's songs 
From land to land, o'er rolling sea, 
Ring with true heroes' glory. 

I see thy peaceful dwellings rise 

O'er boundless territories ; 
I hear thy children, good and wise, 

Proclaim thy future glories. 
That " blessed are the rich in peace, 
The merciful ! " they will increase. 
So says the prophet, they will rise 

To rule earth's territories. 



In gold and silver rich thou art. 
Thy crops are great and growing; 



OUR COUNTRY 4g3 

But richer still I know thy heart, 

Its treasures overflowing. 
To the oppressed thou callest, come! 
To homeless ones thou giv'st a home, 
To hopeless hearts a hopeful heart, 

To every growth a growing. 

So mayest thou grow more strong and free, 

America, forever, 
A blessing to all people be, 

A blighted hope — O, never. 
But may thy eagles farther fly. 
With cries for light and liberty, 
Till hearts and thoughts, as eagles free, 

Thy glory hail forever. 

— Frederica BreJimer. 



OUR FUTURE GREATNESS. 

^^^(k RAND as the past has been, the future shall far 
«@^ surpass it. The best days are all before, not 
r^^^^t behind. The populations of the earth are but a 
fx-^QO handful compared with what they shall be. The 
f^5>' productions of the soil are but a handful compared 
J^ with what they shall be. The resources of the hills are 
T but a handful compared with what they shall be. The 
knowledge gained by science is but a boy's primer compared 
with what shall be the mastery over nature's forces wielded 
by man; but child's play compared with what shall be. 
The spread of virtue is but narrow compared with what 
shall be. The enlightenment of man is but unlight compared 
with what shall be. This nation is destined to live, not 
die ; live, not droop ; live, not shrivel ; live, not drivel 3 live 



464 OUB COUNTRY, 

a deeper life in thought, a purer life in morals, a calmer life 
in effort, a rounder life in culture, a diviner life in charity, 
in love. 

Why should the mother of the seas be still young, active, 
advancing, though a thousand years old, and her daughter 
die? Progress is the law of history, of God. Let the ful- 
ness of Christian principle be assimilated by our nation, and 
we are sure of conservation with- progression. Christianity 
is the salt which repels corruption and disintegration, and 
conserves in vigorous vitality. Whatever it touches it im- 
mortalizes; whatever it controls it preserves; whatever it 
transforms it imbues with immutability. For it is " the 
word of our God which abideth forever." 

The nation lives by morality. Morality flows from piety. 
Morality is never purer than its source. Morality never 
rises higher than its fountain. Pagan nations owned not 
divine religion ; their gods were monsters and their morals 
foul. What is left for this nation to choose? To which of 
the saints shall she turn ? To none of them — to none of 
them; but to Him who is the King of saints and the King of 
nations. And as it was in the beginning, so is it now and 
ever shall be. God ! to thy care she commits herself for 
another century. God of her fathers ! be the God of their 
succeeding race. Make us true, upright, just, pure, humble, 
generous, grateful. Hallow our joys ; sanctify our sorrows ; 
chasten us when haughty ; guard us when imperiled, and 
crown us with such glory as we are able to bear. — Dr, 
Thomas Guard. 



The word of our nation must be as good as its bond. — 
Charles Sumner. 




OUR COUNTRY. 455 



THE AMERICAN NATION HAS A 
FUTURE. 

verily believe this nation has a destiny and a 
history yet to be. I think it probable it is a 
favored nation and a chosen people; as the 
Egyptians were once a chosen people, and the 
Hebrews after them a favored nation. I think we 
are bound to attain the maximum of our power. No 
human hand has led us hither, and no human 
hand can curb that destiny or arrest its progress. In 
the morning of youth the American Hercules had stran- 
gled the serpents which assailed his cradle ! As his strength 
matures, other and more successful labors invite his imperial 
glance and arms. The haughty capital of Rome is already 
rivalled by a more splendid edifice on the Potomac; our 
population resembles that of the ancient mistress of the 
world in its admixture of all peoples, derived from every 
clime, and mingling in the same fierce current the restless 
elements of the globe. Boundless, in its ambition, reckless 
of dangers and impatient of control, sustained in all its trials 
and wonderful progress by an omnipotent hand which has 
been more than once visibly interposed, the vast political 
system of which America is at once the centre and a nucleus 
rises grandly up to the utmost of our hopes, moves forward 
with resistless sweep, as if it were, indeed, a part of the 
Celestial Economies. Like the Colossus at Rhodes, between 
Avhose feet once floated the commerce of the world, it holds 
a beacon in one hand and an arrow in the other, towers to 
the zenith with unflinching gaze. Heaven's lightning crest 
her head. The live thunders sleep among her purple heights 

30 



466 OUR COUNTRY, 

and sun-crowned crags. Beaming down with a starry, mild 
and planetary light, the well-known forms of her Northern 
States and seas no longer cast across this Southern hemis- 
phere dark and doubtful shadows. They climb up with us 
together and between the older constellations, walking 
among them and by them, with majestic port and pride ; as 
though the other planets only marked our footprints on the 
skies, and the universe was our throne. — Edward Cantwell, 



DESTINY OF AMERICA. 

HE Muse disgusted at an age and clime 
Barren of every glorious theme, 
In distant lands now waits a better time 
Producing subjects worthy fame. 

In happy climes, where from the genial sun 
And virgin earth, such scenes ensue ; 

The force of art by nature seems outdone, 
And fancied beauties by the true. 

In happy climes, the seat of innocence, 
Where nature guides, and virtue rules; 

Where men shall not impose for truth and sense 
The pedantry of courts and schools. 

There shall be sung another golden age, 

The rise of empire and of arts, 
The good and great inspiring epic rage. 

The wisest heads and noblest hearts. 

Not such as Europe breeds in her decay ; 
Buch as she breeds when fresh and young, 




OUR COUNTRY. 4(37 

When heavenly flame did animate her clay, 
By future poets shall be sung. 

"Westward the course of empire takes its way ; 

The first four acts already past, 
A fifth shall close the drama with the day, 

Time's noblest offspring is the last. 

— George Berkeley. 



FREEDOM'S GRAND REVIEW. 

vf ?AN has ever cherished the fond belief that the 
' sacrament of death dissolves none of the attributes 
of the soul ; that the love which thrills his being 
here, for principles and persons, also embues his 
spiritual existence. Believing this, the sweet hope 
follows that the ordinances of a merciful God permit the 
departed one, whose angel feet tread the emerald fields 
of Paradise, to watch over his earthly loves and joy with 
them in their joys. 

If this dream be true, in this proud hour, when freedom 
holds her grand review, upon the alabaster battlements of 
heaven stand the host of sages and martyrs, who, upon 
earth, braved and suffered to elevate mankind. Behold the 
immortal Washington, sage of Mt. Yernon, leading by the 
hand the martyred Lincoln — Father and Saviour of a com- 
mon country. The Sage of Monticello, with his folded arms 
and towering brow, his pen of fire ; he who, dying, craved no 
other boon than that above his grave should be inscribed, 
'• Here lies the author of the Declaration of Independence." 
There is Henry of Virginia; he w^ho startled a w^orld with 
his loud cry, " Give me liberty or give me death." That cry 




468 OUR COUNTRY, 

yet rings down the aisles of a century as pure and clear as 
when uttered in the House of Burgesses of Virginia. There 
is Franklin, King of the Lightning, philosopher and states- 
man ; he who, in plain Quaker garb, stood in the presence 
of the proudest sovereign and the haughtiest aristocracy of 
the world, charming and convincing all with his eloquent 
appeal in behalf of freedom. There is the boyish form of 
Lafayette, as he bounded from the ease of a court and the 
dalliances of a bride to the gloom and terrors of Yalley 
Forge. Bold Rupert of Liberty ! what joy for thee does this 
day hold, for not only America but also France is free. 
There is Allen, bold Green mountain bo}^, as he looked when 
he leapt Ticonderoga's battlements and demanded its sur- 
render in the name of the Great Jehovah and of the Conti- 
nental Congress. And Stark, with the light of battle in his 
eyes, as when at Bennington he declared that that day victory 
should be his or Molly Stark should be a. widow. And 
Morgan, with his iron-nerved riflemen — the men of Quebec, 
Saratoga and Cowpens. Pulaski, as he charged at Brandy- 
wine to rescue Washington, and as he looked, folded in the 
arms of death before the gates of Savannah. Montgomery, 
hero of Quebec — he who in the darkness of the night, amidst 
the driving snows and hurtling cannon shot, poured out the 
libations of his noble heart in the cause of Liberty, cradled 
in the arms of Aaron Burr. 

Seethe gallant cowboys of the Hudson — Williams, Pauld- 
ing and Yan Wart — whose rugged honesty ill-foted Andre's 
gold nor promise could not overcome. And there is Mad 
Anthony as he charged at Germantown and at Stony Point, 
and Putnam, Knox, Lee, Pickens, Sumter, Marion, Greene, 
Gates, and all the countless throng of sages and heroes of 
the Revolution, and with them stands the Murat of the 



OUR COUNTRY. 4^9 

battle-field, Arnold — aye, Benedict Arnold. Death has 
sanctified his life. God reverses man's judgment; the 
shadows of a century have forever hidden his faults. We 
can only see him now as the first to spring to freedom's side; 
as he appeared when he led his troops through the forests 
of Maine and. Canada; as he appeared on that winter night 
when planning the assault with Montgomery, or, when lying 
shattered and wounded, he implored the faithful and gallant 
Morgan to leave him to his fate ; or as at Champlain, when 
he sank with his burning fleet beneath the wave rather than 
leave any trophy of victory for the enemy ; or as at Sara- 
toga, when the day seemingly was lost, he, like a meteor, alone, 
without authority or any command, summoned the army to 
follow him and led their way to victory. Standing there, 
our fathers behold the fair daughters and brave sons of 
liberty sporting in the bright valleys that border the river 
where flows unvexed the sweet waters of peace. Whilst 
Europe trembles and grows pale with war's afiright, here 
peace stands at the helm, and hope and glory fill our sails. 
This land, the asylum for the oppressed of all the earth, 
draws to it representative intellect, genius and blood from 
every nation, and fusing all, gives to us as a nation the en- 
grossed intelligence, endurance and physique of them all. 
As the fruits of civil, religious and political liberty, they 
behold our institutions of learning, and particularly the' 
free schools, pouring yearly into the wondering lap of the 
world legions of men with cultured intellects, all disciples 
of the faith that man is capable of self-government, and 
that all men by nature are born free and equal. These 
legions form the nucleus that in time of peace chain the 
elements, outstrip time, bridge space and whirl the myriad 
wheels of industry; and, in time of war, with every sue- 



470 ^^R COUNTRY, 

cessive effort plani higher and still higher the emblem of 
the free. They behold the Christian Church; the Jewish 
Synagogue, the Moslem and Pagan Temple, and the Lyceum 
for Free Thought, all rise side by side. The myriads of 
their devotees mingling their currents without a menace or 
a scowl of hate, proclaim conscience free. They behold the 
thirteen feeble stars grown into a vast constellation, each an 
empire in itself, yet revolving around a common centre, 
bound and attracted thereto by the unseen bonds of consti- 
tutional law. That flag which they gave to liberty in the 
carnage, smoke, and death of rebellion, has grown into the 
recognized insignia of freedom throughout the world. No 
nation is so distant or so powerful that it does not there 
hold its honored place; no ocean that does not mirror it; no 
desert or mountain land that has not been lighted by its 
smile. It weaves in sovereignty over Alaskan glaciers and 
amid the leafy bannerets of the tropical everglades; it greets 
the rising sun from amid the towering forests of the Kenne- 
bec and waves him good-night from the pearly shores of the 
Pacific ; and now, unstained by dishonor, unsullied by defeat, 
it flashes back to heaven the triumph of a century. — Hon, 
a E, Belong. 

By the rivers of America light beams forth to the nations. 
— KlopstocJc. 

Let no American leave his native land for enjoyment 
when he can view the rugged wildness of her mountains, 
admire the beauty of her cultured plains, the noble extent 
of her broad rivers, the expanse of her lakes, and fearful 
grandeur of her cataracts, or feel the rich blessings of her 
freedom. — Anonymous, 




OUR COUNTRY. 471 



DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 

A DECLARATION BY THE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED 
STATES OF AMERICA, IN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED. 

'hen, in the course of human events, it becomes 
necessary for one people to dissolve the political 
bands which have connected them with another, 
and to assume, among the powers of the earth, 
the separate and equal station to which the laws of 
nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent 
respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they 
should declare the causes which impel them to the separa- 
tion. 

We hold these truths to be, self-evident, that all men are 
created equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with 
certain unalienable rights; that among these, are life, liberty, 
and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, 
governments are instituted among men, deriving their just 
powers from the consent of the governed : that, whenever 
any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, 
it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to 
institute a new government, laying its foundation on such 
principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to 
them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happi- 
ness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long 
established, should not be changed for light and transient 
causes ; and, accordingly, all experience hath shown, that 
mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are suffer- 
able, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to 
which they are accustomed. But, when a long train of 



472 OUR COUNTRY. 

abuses and usurpations^ pursuing invariably the same object, 
evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, 
it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such govern- 
ment, and to provide new guards for their -future security. 
Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies, and 
such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter 
their former systems of government. The history of the 
present king of Great Britain is a history of repeated 
injuries and usurpations, all having, in direct object, the 
establishment of an absolute tyranny over these States. To 
prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world : 
' He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and 
necessary for the public good. 

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate 
and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation 
till his assent should be obtained ; and, when so suspended, 
he has utterly neglected to attend to them. 

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation 
of large districts of people, unless those people would relin- 
quish the right of representation in the legislature ; a right 
inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only. 

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, 
uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their pub- 
lic records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into com- 
pliance with his measures. 

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for 
opposing, with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights 
of the people. 

He has refused, for a long time after such dissolutions, to 
cause others to be elected ; whereby the legislative powers, 
incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at 
large for their exercise ; the State remaining, in the mean 



OUR country: 473 

time^ exposed to all the danger of invasion from without and 
convulsions within. 

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these 
States ; for that purpose, obstructing the laws for naturaliza- 
tion of foreigners ; refusing to pass others to encourage their 
migration hither, and raising the conditions- of new appro- 
priations of lands. 

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refus- 
ing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers. 

He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the 
tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their 
salaries. 

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither 
swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their 
substance. 

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, 
without the consent of our legislature. 

He has affected to render the military independent of, and 
superior to, the civil power. 

He has combined, with others, to subject us to a juris- 
diction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by 
our laws ; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legis- 
lation : 

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us : 

For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment, 
for any murders which they should commit on the inhabi- 
tants of these States : 

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world : 

For imposing taxes on us without our consent : 

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial 
by jury: 



474 OUR COUNTRY, 

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended 
offences : 

For abolisliing the free system of English laws in a neigh- 
boring province, establishing therein an arbitrary govern- 
ment, and enlarging its boundaries, so as to render it at once 
an example and fit instrument for introducing the same 
absolute rule into these colonies : 

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable 
laws, and altering, fundamentally, the powers of our govern- 
ments : 

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring them- 
selves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases 
whatsoever. 

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out 
of his protection, and waging war against us. 

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our 
towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. - 

He is, at this time, transporting large armies of foreign 
mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and 
tyranny, already begun, with circumstances of cruelty and 
perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and 
totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation. 

He has constrained our fellow-citizens, taken captive on 
the high seas, to bear arms against their country, to become 
the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall 
themselves by their hands. 

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and 
has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, 
the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare 
is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and 
conditions. 

In every stage of these oppressions, we have petitioned 



OUR COUNTRY. 475 

for redresS; in the most humble terms ; our repeated petitions 
have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, 
whose character is thus marked by every act which may 
define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. 

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British 
brethren. 

We have warned them, from time to time, of attempts 
made by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable juris- 
diction over us. We have reminded them of the circum- 
stances of our emigration and settlement here. We have 
appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we 
have conjured them, by the ties of our common kindred, to 
disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt 
our connections and correspondence. They, too, have been 
deaf to the voice of justice and consanguinity. We must, 
therefore, acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our 
separation, and hold them as we hold the rest of mankind, 
enemies in war, in peace, friends. 

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States 
OF America, in general Congress assembled, appealing to 
the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our in- 
tentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good 
people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare. That 
these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free 
and indejpendent States; that they are absolved from all 
allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connec- 
tion between them and the state of Great Britain, is, and 
ought to be, totally dissolved ; and that, as free and inde- 
pendent States, they have full power to levy war, conclude 
peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all 
other acts and things which independent States may of 
right do. And, for the support of this declaration, witha 



476 OUR COUNTRY. 

firm reliance on the protection of DIVINE PROVIDENCE, 
we mutually pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes, 
and our sacred honor. — John Hancock, 



OUR GOVERNMENT— ITS ADMINIS- 
TRATION. 

'^''^^OVERNMENT is essential for the restraint of 
irm^^ evil, for the security of justice, and for the de- 
I^^^^G velopment of peace and purity. 

THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT. 

The National Government is triune. One govern- 
ment composed of three co-ordinate departments, inde- 
pendent of each other. 1. The Legislative. 2. The Execu- 
tive. 3. The Judicial. The first makes the laws; the 
second enforces the laws ; the third interprets the laws and 
administers justice. 

LEGISLATIVE DEPAETMENT. 

The legislative power is vested in a Congress composed of 
the people's representatives. It consists of a Senate and 
House of Representatives. 

The Senate is composed of two senators from each State, 
elected for a term of six years, by the State Legislatures. 
The senator must be thirty years of age, nine years a citizen 
of the United States, and an inhabitant of the State for 
which he is chosen. The Vice-President of the United 
States is President of the Senate, but has no vote, except in 
case of a tie, but when sitting as a high court to try im- 
peachments, the Chief- Justice of the United States presides. 



OUR COUNTRY. 477 

The House is composed of representatives elected directly 
by the people by ballot, the number from each State de- 
pending on the population. In 1792 there was one to each 
33,000 ; in 1883 there was one to each 154,325. A repre- 
sentative must be twenty-five years of age, a citizen of the 
United States six years, and an inhabitant of the State for 
which he is chosen. The representatives choose their own 
presiding officer — the Speaker, and have the sole power of 
impeachment. 

The Senate and House meet at the same time and place, 
but in separate chambers. A majority in each constitutes a 
quorum. Neither House can adjourn for more than three 
daj^s without the consent of the other. Members of both 
Houses are free from arrest during their attendance at the 
sessions of their respective Houses, or going to or returning 
from the same, except in cases of treason, felony, or breach 
of peace. No person is allowed to hold office while a mem- 
ber of either House. Each Congress is limited to two years. 

POWERS OF CONGRESS. 

Congress is vested wdth sovereign power to do business 
with foreign nations, and regulate commerce among the 
States. But Congress cannot suspend the privilege of the 
writ of habeas corpus, unless where the public safety may 
require it, neither can it grant any title of nobility, nor in 
any way favor one State above another. Its object is to 
develop the resources of the several States, and protect them 
as a whole. 

HOW LAWS ARE PASSED. 

A bill must originate in the House of Representatives. 
If it passes both Houses it is taken to the President of the 
United States, who signs it, and it then becomes a law. If 



478 OUR COUNTRY, 

he does not approve it, he returns it with his written objec- 
tions. This is called a veto. Then it may.be reconsidered, 
and if passed by a two-thirds vote of each House, it becomes 
a law without the President's signature. 

STATES AND TERRITORIES. 

The States are independent in a degree, but are not 
sovereign. The National Constitution does not allow them 
the exercise of the functions of sovereign power. Originally 
there were thirteen States; there are now forty-two. A 
State is first a Territory. A section of the republic is set 
apart, and a government organized. The Governor and 
other officers are appointed by the President of the United 
States, by and with the consent of the Senate. 

The Territory has a Legislature which passes local laws, 
which may be rejected by Congress. The inhabitants elect 
a representative to Congress; he tells that body what the 
Territory needs, but he has no vote, and the people of a 
Territory do not vote for the President of the United States. 
When a Territory contains a certain number of inhabitants, 
a convention may be called, a constitution adopted, and an 
application for admission into the Union be made to Congress. 
If the application is accepted, the Territory becomes a State. 

EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT. 

The executive power is vested in the President of the 
United States, whose office is limited to four years, but he 
may be re-elected indefinitely. His power is co-ordinate 
but not co-equal with the legislative department. He is 
the agent to execute the will of the people as expressed by 
law. He is commander-in-chief of the army and navy, 
also of the militia of the States when called into actual ser- 
vice. He has power to fill official vacancies during the recess 



OUR COUNTRY. 479 

of the Senate, and may be removed from office on impeach- 
ment for high crimes. 

JUDICIAL DEPARTMENT. 

The judicial power is vested in a Supreme Court, sitting 
at the national capital, with such inferior courts as Congress 
may establish in various parts of the Union. The judges 
hold their offices during good behavior. The Supreme 
Court has original jurisdiction in all cases affecting ambassa- 
dors, other public ministers, and consuls, and those in which 
a State may be a party. In all other cases it has appellate 
jurisdiction as to law and fact. 

ADMINISTRATION OF GOVERNMENT. 

The President administers the laws through the advice 
and assistance of eight cabinet ministers. Each minister is 
at the head of a separate executive department. 

THE EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS. 

The executive departments are known as State, Treasury, 
War, Navy, Interior, Post Office, Justice, and Agricultural. 
The last department has been recently organized. These 
various departments are divided into different branches, and 
have competent men in charge. Thus through these execu- 
tive departments the vast machinery of our government is 
smoothly run, enabling us to enjoy life, liberty, and the pur- 
suit of happiness. If interested in the facts and figures of 
America, send ten cents to the publishers of this book for a 
copy of "The National Scrap-Book or All About Our 
Country." 

The maturity of the nation, is but a continuation of its 
youth. — George Bancroft, 



480 



OUR COUNTRY, 



A PARTING WORD. 

^'bEFEND your rights and your freedom, fellow- 
citizens, by keeping alive the sacred fires of intelli- 
gence. Never put off the armor of patriotism. 
Fling a kiss to liberty. Bare the head and bow 
submissively to the God of all hearts, that it has 
&' been your high privilege to stand in this noon-day light 
under these beneficent institutions. Remember, all who 
would rest in the seat of free government, that it is not 
covered with cushions of luxurious down. It is a rocR 
angular with righteousness, adamantine with justice, and 
snowy white with purity. Let us fit ourselves to occupy it 
by lives of blameless rectitude and unselfish devotion to 
freedom. — WiUiam A. Bartlett, D. D, 





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